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CHRISTIAN BAPTISM; 



ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENTS. 



BY 



ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 



"ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM." 




BETHANY, VA.: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 

> 1851. 



iS 



n(2«1 






Western District op Virginia, to wit: 

Be it remembered, That on the 18th day of February, Anno Domini 1851, Alex- 
ander Campbell, of the said District, hath deposited in this Office the title of a 
book ; the title of which is in the words following, to wit : — " Christian Baptism, 
with its Antecedents and Consequents ;" the right whereof he claims as author and 
proprietor, in conformity with the Act of Congress, entitled An Act to amend the 
eeyeral acts respecting copyrights. 

ERASMUS STRIBLING, 
Clerk of the Western District of Virginia. 



STEREOITPEB BY L. JOHNSON AND CO. 
PHILADELPHIA. 



ifiitatinm 



To Baptists of every name and parti/, in the United States of 
America and in the British Provinces, who speak our vernacular, 
as an humble Tribute of his respect and esteem, on account of their 
uniform and persevering advocaci/ of freedom of thought, of speech, 
and of action, in all that pertains to the rights of conscience and 
to civil liberty/, as well as for their constant and untiring efforts 
to sustain the Apostolic institution of Christian Baptism: And 
especially to those who plead for the Union and Co-operation of 
all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, on the basis of 
**Onb Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of 
ALL, one Body, one Spirit, and one Hope,'^ this Volume is re-* 
spectfully and affectionately inscribed by 

THE AUTHOB. 



PKEFACE. 



The important question of Christian Baptism is yet, with 
many, an undecided question. With many, too, it has been de- 
cided wrong, because decided on human authority, or on partial 
evidence, without personal and proper examination. Neither 
Christian faith nor Christian character can be inherited, as the 
goods and chattels of this world. There is no royal or ancestral 
path to faith, piety, or humanity. Whatever truly elevates, 
adorns, or dignifies a human being, must be, more or less, the 
fruit of his own efforts. 

Five points are necessarily involved in this discussion, essen- 
tial to a rational and scriptural decision of the question. These 
are : 1. The action, called baptism. 2. The subject of that action. 
3. The design of that action. 4. The antecedents; and, 5. The 
consequents of that action. These are distinct topics, each of 
which must be scripturally apprehended in its evangelical im- 
port and bearings, before this solemn and sublime symbol can 
be truly enjoyed in its spiritual influences and importance. 
And such is the prominent and imposing attitude in which its 
Author placed it, when, in giving a commission to his apostles 
to convert the nations of the earth to him, he makes this the 
consummating act of their preaching Christ — of converting and 

evangelizing the world. "Go," said he, "into all the world, 

1* 6 



6 PREFACE. 

convert the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit/' 

Misconceptions of this institution are, it has been often re- 
marked, more or less connected with misconceptions of the 
whole Christian institution, and lie as the sub-basis of the pre- 
sent apostasy from original Christianity. By the grand " Mo- 
ther of Harlots'' and delusions, it has been degraded to the rank 
of a mere rite or ceremony, and made a door of admission, wide 
as the whole world, into the bosom of what is impiously called 
" The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ/' 

In view of this, the following treatise discusses the whole 
subject, in what its author esteems its natural and logical order, 
placing before the mind of the reader each and every point, in 
its proper position and relative importance to the whole institu- 
tion. This gives a somewhat miscellaneous appearance to the 
volume ; but, in view of the whole premises, it will, he hopes, 
make it more really useful and satisfactory to every reader, so 
much interested in the subject as to give it a candid and careful 
perusal. 

The author regards the antecedents and consequents of Chris- 
tian Baptism, as furnishing not only much material for profit- 
able reflection, on the part of every earnest inquirer after the 
truth and design of Christianity, but as also furnishing argu- 
ments in support of the divine origin, authority, and value of 
Christian Baptism, necessary to an intelligent and satisfactory 
decision of the much litigated questions, What is Christian 
Baptism? and What are the benefits thereof? 

He has condensed a very large amount and variety of materials 
on the special questions. What is Christian Baptism ? Who are 
its legitimate subjects? and What its specific design? into as 
small a space as possible, not desiring to say even a moiety of 
what he might say on the premises. Much of what is said is 
designed to be suggestive to the mind of the reader, rather than 
to leave him nothing to do but to read what is written ; to open 
to his mind the unwasting fountains of light and knowledge 



PREFACE. 7 

contained in the Divine Records of eternal wisdom and provi- 
dence, that he may see, in the clear, full, and certain light of 
God's own book, the glorious scheme of redemption, as indicated 
in the precious and sublime symbol of Christian Baptism. 

The continual agitation of this Subject is important and be- 
nevolent, so long as unscriptural views of it are not only enter- 
tained, but made the bitter root of discord amongst good men, 
and of schism in the Christian profession. Truth ever gains, 
and error uniformly loses, by discussion. The results of the 
discussions of this subject during the last thirty years, are at 
least the addition of a hundred thousand persons to the profes- 
sion of " one Lord, one faith, and one baptism ;'^ and, so far, 
have contributed to the triumph of truth, the union of Christians, 
and the Conversion of the world. We, therefore, commend to 
the blessing of the Lord, this new offering on our part to the 
advancement of truth in the world, and as an humble means 
of promoting the cause of Christian union and co-operation 
amongst all who love Zion and seek the peace and happiness 
of Jerusalem. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Intropuctiqn.. *.••••. • 13 



BOOK I. 

ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Chap. L— The Bible 23 

IL— The Bible 36 

IIL — The Bible — Principles of Interpretation 49 

IV.— Faith.... 63 

V. — ^Repentance unto Life.... 76 

VI. — Covenants of Promise — Circumcision 89 

VII. — ^Flesh and Spirit — Liberty and Necessity — New In- 
stitution 102 

BOOK IL 

ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

Chap. I. — Bapto — The root of Baptize 116 

II. — Baptizo — Greek Lexicographers 122 

III. — ^Ancient Versions 134 

IV.— English Translations 139 

V. — Refarmers, Annotators, Paraphrasts, and Critics... 144 
VI. — English Lexicographers, Encyclopedias, and Review- 
ers of the Pedobaptist School 149 

9 



10 contents/ 

Pag« 
VII. — Words used in construction with BqptkOy Raino, Ran- 

tizo, Cheo, and Louo^ such as epi, en, eis, eJc, apo 153 
VIII. — The Places where Baptism was anciently adminis- 
tered 157 

IX. — Apostolic Allusions to Baptism 161 

X. — Passages urged against Immersion from the use of 

Baptizo and Baptismos in certain places 166 

XL — Legal Sprinklings 171 

XII.— Convertible Terms 178 

XIII. — History of Immersion and Sprinkling 181 

BOOK IIL 

SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

Chap. I. — Subjects of John's Baptism 205 

II. — Subjects of Christian Baptism — Induction of New 

Testament Cases 219 

III. — Subjects of Baptism and Subjects of Circumcision 

contrasted 233 



BOOK IV. 

DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

Chap. I. — Design of Baptism.. 247 

11. — Design of Baptism 259 

BOOK V. 

CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Chap. L—Adoption 274 

11. —Justification 277 

III. — Sanctification .* 285 



CONTENTS. H 

BOOK VI. 

REVIEWS OF THE ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

Page 

Chap. I. — Review of Bishop Kenrick's Treatise 313 

II.— Review of Dr. Miller, of Princeton 326 

III.— Review of Prof. Miller, of Princeton ; and Dr. Wall, 

Vicar of Shorem, in Kent 339 

IV. — Review of Prof. Miller, of Princeton ; and Dr. Wall, 

Vicar of Shorem, and others..... 352 

v.— Review of Prof. Miller, Dr. Wall, &c., continued... 365 

VL— Review of Dr. Kurtz, and Rev. Mr. Hall 378 

VII.— Review of Prof. Stuart, of Andover 392 

VIII.— The Evil of Infant Baptism 405 

IX.— Review of Dr. C. Taylor, Editor of Calmet's Dic- 
tionary of the Bible 417 

X. — One hundred and thirty-four Questions on Infant 

Baptism 422 

Appendix ••• 437 



INTRODUCTION. 



Christianity has its theory and its practice. Its tlieory is 
the Sacred Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus 
Christ ; its practice, the life of the Christian, The Christian 
profession is not now what it once was. It has become secular 
and sectarian. The members of the church of Christ were for- 
merly called " saints/' " elect of God/' " a chosen generation/' 
"a royal priesthood/' "a peculiar people.'' Now they are 
called "Churchmen/' "Dissenters/' "Romanists/' "Protest- 
ants/' "Episcopalians/' "Presbyterians/' "Independents/' 
"Baptists/' "Methodists/' &c. &c. &c. The church was once 
" a spiritual house/' whose members were addressed as "justi- 
fied/' " sanctified/' " adopted/' and " saved." It was " a holy 
nation" whose citizens had their citizenship in heaven. Such 
were its designations, and such was its general character. The 
exceptions were comparatively few. These mostly renounced 
the profession and went back into the world. " They went out 
from us because they were not of us/' said the beloved John ; 
" for had they been of us they would no doubt have continued 
with us ; but they went out that they might be made manifest 
that tliey were not all of us J' 

But that such would not always be the character of the Chris- 
tian profession, was clearly foreseen and distinctly foretold by 
the holy Apostles. " There shall come a falling away" — " an 
apostasy," said Paul. He adds, " A Man of Sin," " the Son 
OF Perdition," will come, and must be developed. His cha- 
racter is delineated, as proud, haughty, and secular. He was, 
indeed, to be a churchman — to " sit in the temple of God." He 

2 13 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

would exalt himself amongst and above the gods of earth — the 
kings and monarchs of nations. This mystic character would 
gain the ascendency by assumed powers ; — " signs," " miracles 
of falsehood/' and " with all the deceitfulness of unrighteous- 
ness/' amongst them "who did not love the truth," but had 
pleasure in iniquity. Indeed, " the Spirit speaketh expressly, 
that in the latter days" a portion of the Christian profession 
** would depart from the faith," giving heed to seducing preach- 
ers, and " to doctrines concerning the spirits of dead men ;" 
" speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared as 
with a hot iron." They would preach a monastic life, advocate 
celibacy, " forbidding .to marry," observing lent, "commanding 
to abstain from meats which God has* created to be received 
with thanksgiving, being sanctified by the word of God and 
prayer." 

Indeed, the Apostle informs us that " as there were false pro* 
phets among the people" in former times, " so there should be 
false teachers as well as false professors among the people of 
God, who should bring in " condemnable heresies ;" — reprobate 
schisms, and " destructive sects." "While acknowledging Jesus 
as a teacher or prophet, and from God, they would undermine 
his divinity, "denying the Lord that bought them," "who gave 
his life a ransom for many," and " who redeemed us to God by 
his blood." He adds, " Many shall follow their pernicious ways, 
by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." 

Now all this will be done " for filthy lucre's sake." " Through 
covetousness shall they with feigned words" (of piety) " make 
merchandise of you." Their example will lead to skepticism 
and general infidelity ; " for," says the same Apostle, know this 
especially, " that in the last days scofiers shall come, walking 
after their own lusts," saying, " Where is the promise of his 
coming ; for all things go on as they did from the beginning of 
the world ?" The mother of all this apostasy and infidelity is 
compared to a charlatan, or rather to a courtezan very gayly and 
fashionably attired. " She is arrayed in purple and scarlet, 
decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a 
golden chalice in her hands full of abominations," the rewards 
of " the filthiness of her fornications." She wears a splendid 
tiara magnificently adorned; but when deciphered and fairly 
interpreted, it means, "Babylon the Great, the Mother op 
Harlots," and Parent of all Abominations. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

Such is a portion of the fortunes of the Christian profession 
as foretold by the Apostles. We have seen it ; nay, we live in 
the midst of it. This " Man of Sin'' still lives in Rome, and 
pretends to be " the Vicar of Christ'' and " the Prince of the 
Apostles." 

A reformation of Popery was attempted in Europe full three 
centuries ago. It ended in a Protestant hierarchy, and swarms 
of dissenters. Protestantism has been reformed into Presby- 
terianism, — that into Congregationalism, — and that into Bap- 
tistism, &c. &c. Methodism has attempted to reform all, but 
has reformed itself into many forms of Wesleyism. None of 
these has begun at the right place. All of them retain in their 
bosom, in their ecclesiastic organizations, worship, doctrines, 
and observances, various relics of Popery. They are, at best, 
but a reformation of Popery, and only reformations in part. 
The doctrines and traditions of men yet impair the power and 
progress of the gospel in their hands ; and, therefore, as com- 
munities, they are not distinguished by the ancient piety, zeal, 
and humanity, nor for their efforts and success in evangelizing 
the world at home or abroad. It is probable that as many of 
their own offspring are converted to the world, or to infidelity, 
as they have reclaimed from the world and the various forms of 
infidelity, during any given period of years. Most of the So- 
cialists, Agrarians, Fourierists, Owenists, Rationalists, Pusey- 
ists, &c., now in Protestant countries, are of Protestant ancestry. 
Our missionary gains from heathen lands do not more, at most, 
than fill up the apostasies from Protestant households to the 
numerous and various forms of infidelity. 

Living then, as we do, in the midst of such abortive efforts at 
reformation; seeing the progress of error, and regretting the 
feeble and slow advances of the gospel upon even the outposts 
of error, infidelity, and abounding iniquity, we are constrained 
to inquire, if any thing can be done ; and, if any thing, what 
should it be, and how attempted ? To fight the old battles over 
again, to rally under the old banners of Calvinism, or Arminian- 
ifim ; to propose some Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, 
or Methodist platform of improvement, either of theory or prac- 
tice, or to adopt Scotch, English, or American Baptistism, could 
promise nothing better than that which already is, or has hereto- 
fore been. These have all been tried. Their whole moral and 
epiritual power has been made to bear upon the present condi- 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

tions and past conditions of sectarianized Christianity. And 
what have they done ? What can they do better than they have 
already done? Do the new parties called ^'Reformed^^ enjoy 
more spirituality, more union, more harmony and peace among 
themselves, than the old ones ? Are they more benevolent, more 
liberal, more active, or more successful in converting the world, 
than the old ones ? Or do they seek to unite the faithful, or to 
bring all Protestant parties into one communion? Are they 
more successful in active benevolence than those who preceded 
them ? These are questions which, as far as I am informed, 
must all be answered in the negative. From them united on 
any one of these creeds, or from them as they now are, can we 
expect a better state of things, internal or external ? If so, we 
ask them for the proof. Till that is given, we shall, because we 
must, despair of it. 

All creeds are mere theories of* Christian doctrine, discipline, 
and government, exhibited as a basis of church union. Being 
speculative, they have always proved themselves to be " apples 
of discord'^ or " roots of bitterness" amongst the Christian pro- 
fession. They have, in days of yore, erected pillories, founded 
prisons, provoked wars, kindled fires, consecrated autos da fsy 
instituted star-chambers, courts of high commission, and horrible 
tribunals of Papal inquisition. Exile, banishment, confiscation 
of goods, lands, and tenements, and martyrdom, have been their 
convincing logic, their persuasive rhetoric, and their tender 
mercies. 

Having long reflected upon these premises — these creeds, 
schisms, and parties — as well as on the Sacred Writings of 
Apostles and Prophets, and the primitive communities founded 
on them, we are fully convinced that neither Popery, nor any 
of its Protestant reformations, is the Christian Institution de^ 
livered to us in the Holy Scriptures. What is Popery, but the 
extreme of defection and apostasy? What is Prelacy, but a 
reformed modification of Popery? What is Presbyterianism, 
but a reform of Prelacy ? What is Congregationalism, or Inde- 
pendency, but a reform of Presbyterianism? And what is 
Wesleyan Methodism, but a popular emendation of English 
Episcopacy, combined with the enthusiasm of ancient Quaker- 
ism ? Amonst them all, we thank the grace of God that there 
are many who believe in, and love the Saviour, and th^t, though 
we may not have Christian churches, we have many Christians. 



INTRODUCTION. IT 

Is not this as obvious and intelligible as that while there are 
many republicans in England, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, 
and Germany, there is not in them all one republic I 

Protestant parties are all founded upon Protestant peculiari- 
ties. Indeed, there is but one radical and distinctive idea in 
any one of them. That is, their centre of attraction and of 
radiation. They baptize themselves at the laver of that idea, 
and assume the name of it, whatever it may be, Episcopalian, 
Presbyterian, or Methodist, &c. &c. They build on what is 
peculiar, and thus, in effect, undervalue that which is common 
to them all. And yet, themselves being judges, that which is 
common is much more valuable than that which is peculiar. 
The sub-basis of all parties is the tenet which is their cognomen. 
The difference between a Churchman and a Presbyterian is 
neither Calvinism nor Arminianism, faith nor repentance, 
righteousness nor holiness, baptism nor the eucharist, but the 
politics of ecclesiastical organization—- the policy called Episco- 
pacy or Presbytery — the single idea of one Bishop, or two 
Bishops in one church, a Prelate or a Presbytery. Every other 
peculiarity is but the colouring, modification, or development of 
this idea. This consecrates the sacramental table. 

Now, it appears to us, the things which are most commonly 
believed are most valuable, certainly much more valuable than 
any one of the partisan peculiarities. The things most com- 
monly believed are, of course, most evident ; and generally in 
the ratio of the evidence in proof of any fact or proposition is 
its value. Komanists and Protestants of almost every name 
believe that " Christ died for our sins,'' and that "he was bu- 
ried,'' and that "he rose again the third day" according to 
prophecy. These, the Apostle Paul says, will save any man 
that believes them ; if, indeed, he do practically believe them. 
But who can say this of any one of the partisan foundations ? 
Of the Papal seven sacraments but two are held in common 
among all Protestants. These are Christian baptism and the 
Lord's supper. And who will not say that these two are infi- 
nitely more valuable than either marriage or extreme unction, 
or any or all the five reputed as such ? We conclude, then, that 
a party founded on all that is commonly received by Roman- 
ists, Greeks, and Protestants, and nothing more, would not only 
be a new party, one entirely new, but incomparably more ra* 

tional, and certainly more scriptural than any of them. 

2* 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

From a full survey of the premises of ecclesiastical history, 
of human creeds and sects, — and especially from a profound re- 
gard for the wisdom and knowledge that guided, and the Spirit 
that inspired the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and that qualified 
them to reveal his will, — we have proposed an Evangelical Refor- 
mation — or, rather, a return to the faith and manners anciently 
delivered to the saints — a restoration of original Christianity 
both in theory and practice. The three capital points of which 
are: — 

I. The Christian Scriptures, the only rule and measure of 
Christian faith and learning. 

II. The Christian confession, the foundation of Christian 
union and communion. 

III. The Christian ordinances — baptism, the Lord's day, and 
the Lord's supper, — as taught and observed by the Apostles. 

Of these three fundamental propositions we need not, indeed 
"we cannot, now speak particularly. 

Concerning the first, it would seem enough to say, that as the 
Christian writings are the production of the Holy Spirit speak- 
ing to us through the ministers of Christ, they are just what 
they ought to be. The Spirit of God being "the Spirit of wis- 
dom and knowledge,'' the Spirit of eloquence and revelation, 
author of the gift of tongues, and "the Advocate" of Christ, he 
certainly could and did select the best forms of human language 
in which to communicate the mind and will of God to man. 
He possesses infinitely more wisdom, learning, and eloquence, 
than all the Councils and General Assemblies that ever met. 
Hence the Christian Scriptures, when fairly translated, are more 
intelligible, comprehensive, and consequently better adapted to 
the whole family of man, than any formula of Christian doctrine 
ever delivered to man. If, then, we cannot unite, and harmonize 
all discords, upon God's own book, in vain shall we attempt it 
on the books of men. They are, indeed, the only perfect and 
complete rule and standard of Christian faith and manners, 
adapted to man as he is, contemplated in both his individual and 
social character — in the family, church, and national relations 
of life. 

The Christian confession, into which we are baptized, and on 
which we are admitted into the church of God, has been ren- 
dered superlatively conspicuous by the emphasis laid on it by 
the Lord Jesus Christ in person, when he first elicited it at 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

Cesarea Philippi, from that Apostle whose name was Simon 
Rock, or, in Greek, Simon Peter. The question propounded to 
the Apostles was, "TTAo do you say that /, the Son of Man, amf 
Cephas responded, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
LiYiNG God/^ On this, the Saviour responded, " Thou art called 
rock, and on this rock I will build my church, and the 
gates of hades shall not prevail against it/^ 

This confession must be made by every applicant for Christian 
baptism in order to his being constitutionally builded upon the 
divine foundation; or, as we usually say, admitted into the 
Christian kingdom or church. No minister, or church of Jesus 
Christ, has any divine right or authority to ask for more or ac- 
cept of less than this, in order to Christian baptism. We ought, 
indeed, to know that the person so professing understands what 
he says, and gives evidence of the sincerity of his confession : 
but farther than this neither right reason nor revelation interro- 
gates any man, Jew or Gentile. We need not add that no one 
can believe, repent, make confession, or be baptized by proxy, 
or upon another person^s confession. Christianity being per- 
sonal, both in its subject and object, it is neither family nor 
national. Every individual "must be born of water and of the 
Spirit" in order to admission into the present dispensation of 
the kingdom of God. 

Concerning the other Christian ordinances, we observe that, 
Being monumental of the Christian facts — Christ's death, burial, 
and resurrection — and containing in them the grace of God; 
being also social in their nature, they are weekly institutions, 
and to be diligently observed by all the faithful in Christ Jesus 
in their public weekly assemblies. They are, therefore, essential 
parts of "the communion of saints." 

As for prayer and praise, they are, indeed, Christian institu- 
tions ; but not exclusively so. The altar, the priest, and the 
victim, prayer and praise, belong to no age, dispensation, or 
form of religion. They are religion itself. Without these five, 
there is no religion. There was no patriarchal nor Jewish, there 
is no Christian institution of religion, without these media of 
reconciliation and worship. We Christians, indeed, have an 
altar, a high-priest, and a sacrifice, infinitely more sublime and 
glorious than any one around which Patriarchs or Jews ever 
assembled. 

But though we have no private, no family altar, priest, or 



80 INTRODUCTION. 

Bacrifice, we have our personal and our Christian family prayer 
and praise, without which Christian parents cannot possibly 
bring up their families " in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord." 

There is also the Christian fellowship, or contributions for 
the expenditure of the church of Christ, in its various works of 
righteousness and benevolence. The expenses of a community, 
and the benevolence of a community, must also be public as well 
as private and personal. This was anciently called " the fel- 
lowship." In attending upon it, in our weekly assemblies, we 
become followers of the primitive churches, and enjoy the luxury 
of socially practising righteousness and mercy on the Lord's day* 

That Evangelical Reformation, now in progress, extending 
over the United States and the English provinces in America, 
and being now plead in the kingdoms of England, Ireland, and 
Scotland, and in other places, embracing from two to three 
hundred thousand professors, in addition to these fundamental 
matters of scriptural and divine authority, exhibits two other 
propositions besides those three named, as vital and all-import- 
ant to the restoration of original Christianity in faith and prac- 
tice, in letter and in spirit. These are — 

1. That instead of the modern ecclesiastic and sectarian 
terminology, or technical style, we adopt Bible names for 
Bible things. For example: — Instead of "sacraments," we 
prefer ordinances; for "the Eucharist," the Lord^s Supper; for 
** covenant of works," the law; for "covenant of grace," the 
gospel; for "Testament," Institution ov Covenant; for "Trinity," 
Godhead; for "first, second, and third person," the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Spirit; for "Eternal Son," the Son of God; 
for " original sin," ^^e yaZZ or the offence; for "Christian Sab- 
bath," Lord^s day or First day ; for " effectual calling," calling 
or obedience; for "merits of Christ," righteousness or sacrifice 
of Christ; for "general atonement," random ybr aZZ ; for "free 
grace," grace; for "free will," will, &c. &c. 

As the Lord promised by Zephaniah, that in order to union 
amongst his people, he would give them " a pure language, that 
they might all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with 
one consent,^' so every effort at evangelical reformation must, to 
heal divisions and to prevent debate among Christians — aim at 
a " pure language," the language of Canaan, and avoid that of 
Ashdod,— calling Bible things by Bible words. 



INTEODUCTION. 21 

2. The second grand proposition essential to an evangelical 
reformation — ^to Christian union and co-operation in the kingdom 
of Christ, is, — that unity of faith, and not unity of opinion, 
must be publicly and privately taught and advocated as pre- 
requisite to the communion of the children of God. 

The Bible, v^ithout regard to its books or dispensations, ii^ 
properly divided into three grand elements. These are properly 
called facts, precepts, and promises. All these, it is true, might 
be called facts, as all books might be called words. But in th^ 
usual appropriated sense, we call any thing said or done, Q,fact; 
any thing commanded to be done, z, precept; and any thing pro- 
mised to be done, a promise. This distinction greatly reduces 
the subjects of debate — ^the "doctrines," "strifes of words," 
and "endless genealogies," which "minister questions and 
doubts, rather than godly edifying," and makes it quite possible, 
amidst many diversities of opinion, to maintain " unity of spirit 
in the bonds of peace." Each of the three dispensations had 
its own facts, precepts, and promises. The things said and 
done by God and men from Adam to Moses, constitute its Patri- 
archal facts ; those from Moses to Christ, its Jewish facts ; and 
those from Christ to the end of the apostolic writings, its Chris- 
tian facts. Each of these three had also its own peculiar pre- 
cepts and promises. 

Now as facts are only to be believed, precepts to be obeyed, and 
promises to he enjoyed and Jiopedfor, as well as believed, we can 
very easily and perspicuously distinguish what constitutes Chris- 
tian faith. Christian obedience, and Christian hope, not only 
from the Jewish and the Patriarchal, but also from all matters 
of speculation usually called opinions. We must be, because 
we can be, of one faith, of one obedience, and of one hope ; but 
we need not be, because we cannot be, of one opinion, not being 
of one mental or physical constitution. Hence the propriety 
and the beauty of that apostolic exhortation, " Endeavouring to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace ; for there is 
one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of 
your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and 
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." 

These seven reasons, without regard to differences of opinion, 
are the divine basis of Christian union, and should be of all 
Christian co-operation. We ask no more — we propose no less. 
"Matters of doubtful disputations," or, properly, matters of 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

mere speculative belief, have no authority but the reason of man. 
Paul, therefore, commands, " Receive him that is weak in the 
faith without regard to differences of opinion ;'' and " Let the 
Btrong bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please them- 
selves,'' or have their own way. We then lay a divine basis of 
Christian union. We ask for faith, and not for the deductions 
of reason ; for the testimony of God, and not the opinions of men ; 
and say with the Apostle, "As many as walk by this rule, 
peace be on them and mercy, even upon the Israel of God." 



BOOK FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BIBLE, 

The Bible is the oldest and best book in the world. It is 
translated into more languages and read by more people than 
any other volume ever written. Its history and its prophecy 
comprehend the entire destiny of the world. It presents to us 
man in his natural, preternatural, and supernatural conditions 
and characteristics. It records the three great religious ages of the 
world by developing three dispensations of religion — ^the Patri- 
archal, the Jewish, and the Christian. Man as he was, man as he 
is, and man as he shall hereafter be, are its three grand themes. 
It reveals God, by unfolding the mysterious relations of the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the three great works of Crea- 
tion, Providence, and Redemption. 

The Bible is divided into two great departments, usually, but 
improperly, called the Old and New Testaments. The former 
of these contains the inspired writings of Moses, the first of his- 
torians and the greatest of lawgivers, together with those of the 
ancient Prophets ; while the latter contains those of the Apostles 
and Evangelists of Jesus Christ. Regarded as the Jewish and 
the Christian Scriptures, it comprehends sixty-six distinct and 
independent treatises. Thirty-nine of these constitute the Jew- 
ish, and twenty-seven the Christian records. The Christian 
Scriptures are the work of only eight persons, six of whom were 
Apostles, and two of them Evangelists of Jesus Christ and com- 
panions of the Apostles. The Jewish Scriptures were written 
by more than thirty persons, all of whom, save one,* were Jews. 

* Job, it is presumed was an Idumean or Arabian sage. 

23 



24 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

We put down the immediate authors or writers of the Bible at 
not less than forty, as the lowest number, though we cannot with 
absolute certainty name them all. From the birth of Moses till 
the death of John the Apostle is a period of full sixteen hundred 
and sixty years. These books were, therefore, in progress of com- 
pletion not less than fifteen hundred years, and grasp in their 
historic outlines a period of forty-one centuries. A volume of 
such immense compass, exhibiting details of persons, places and 
events so numerous and various, and of such transcendent inter- 
est to mankind, seems to possess claims upon the attention and 
consideration of every human being capable of appreciating its 
history, its biography, its prophecy, its doctrine, or even its 
general literature, above those of any other volume in the world. 

The Jewish Scriptures comprehend history, law, and pro- 
phecy. The Jews were wont to distribute them into " the Law, 
the Prophets, and the Psalms.^' The Christian Scriptures pre- 
eminently consist of historical and epistolary compositions. Of 
all the Jewish writers, Moses, and of all the Christian writers, 
Paul, is the largest and most conspicuous. Both the Jewish and 
Christian Scriptures begin with history and end with prophecy. 
Facts or events, past and future, are, therefore, the main subjects 
on which inspired writers dwell. The historical books of the 
Old Testament are, in all, seventeen. The prophetic books are 
also seventeen ; while the properly didactic and devotional are 
but five. The first five books of the New Testament are also 
historical, the last prophetical, and the rest epistolary. These 
last are miscellaneous in their character, containing sometimes 
history, doctrine, precepts, and exhortations. The whole volume, 
indeed, in its spirit and tendency, is devotional. Whatever God 
has said in the form of declaration, precept, promise, or threat- . 
ening, is designed to make the man of God pure and perfect, and 
thoroughly accomplished for every good word and work. 

The plan of the Bible, as an instrument or means of salvation, 
is admirably adapted to the human constitution and to the cir- 
cumstances which surround man. The end to be obtained is 
happiness ; but that end cannot be accomplished without sancti- 
fication or personal devotion to God. It is, indeed, as impossible 
for God to make any man happy, without making him holy, as 
it is for him to lie. Now the Bible is all arranged with a supreme 
reference to this fact. And as piety or holiness consists in a 
habit of life correspondent with the divine will and character, 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 25 

and is not natural to man as he now is, it must be preceded by 
a change of heart. But this change of the affections being the 
result of faith or a belief of the testimony of God, that testimony 
for such a change must necessarily furnish motives. But these 
motives presuppose gracious acts of kindness on the part of God. 
Sacred history, then, records these acts — whether in the form of 
things said or done, commanded or promised by God. Faith appre- 
hends and receives this testimony concerning these facts. These 
facts, when believed, produce corresponding feelings or states of 
mind, sometimes called repentance or a new heart; and this new 
heart leads to those good actions denominated piety and humanity, 
or holiness and righteousness. The links in this divine chain of 
moral and spiritual instrumentality are, therefore, ^yq— facts, 
testimony, faith, feeling, action; — the end of which is salvation. 
The whole revelation of God is arranged upon this theory or 
view of man's constitution. Thus God acts, the Holy Spirit tes- 
tifies, man believes, feels, and then acts according to the divine 
will. Thus becomes he a new creature. This view of man's 
constitution explains why the Bible is a volume of facts histo- 
rical and prophetical — why it begins with history and ends with 
prophecy — why, in one sentence, God works, then commands, 
then promises. 

To illustrate this by the gospel, it is only necessary to state 
the order of things narrated in the apostolic writings : — 1. Jesus 
died for our sins. 2. The Apostles announced this, and it is 
proved by the Holy Spirit in his resurrection from the dead, and 
subsequent operations. 3. Jews and Gentiles believe these an- 
nunciations as reported to them by the Apostles and Evange- 
lists. 4. They immediately repent of their sins, and inquire 
what to do. Their hearts are changed. 5. They then become 
obedient to the faith. They are saved. 

The plan of the Bible can only be clearly understood when 
man's condition and constitution are clearly and fully appre- 
hended. For, in truth, the Bible is a glorious system of grace — 
an absolutely complete and perfect adaptation of spiritual means 
to a great and glorious end. This, however, is not the only 
grand comprehensive view of the volume of God's inspiration 
which we desire to lay before the reader. We wish to look into 
the mechanism of this sublime instrument of renovation and sal« 
ration. 

Jesus Christ is the centre of the whole evangelical system. Ho 



26 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

is "the Root and the offspring of David'^ — "the Sun of Right- 
eousness^' — "the bright and the Morning Star'' — '' the Alpha 
and the Omega" of the volume. *' The testimony of Jesus is the 
spirit" of all sacred history and of all divine prophecy. Nov?* 
the history of the Bible is very rationally or philosophically ar- 
ranged, both in its prospective and retrospective character, with 
a single and sublime reference to Jesus Christ. Let us ana- 
lyze it. 

The first promise to fallen man respects a Messiah — in these 
words: " I will put enmity between thee/' Serpent, "and the 
woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise 

THY HEAD, AND THOU SHALT BRUISE HIS HEEL." The whole Bible 

but demonstrates, illustrates, and applies this grand promise. 
Eve's son of blessings is now to be elicited out of the humau 
race ; and just so much of the history/ of the human race as is neces- 
sary to his identification, development, and glorification is given, 
and no more. Let the reader take this lamp in his hand, read 
all the historical books of both Testaments, note every fact, inci- 
dent, and document therein found, and see if they do not arrange 
themselves in a proper position, either to identify, develope, or 
glorify this benefactor of our race. We shall glance at Genesis 
for an illustration. • 

The single book of Genesis contains the only information we 
have of the human race for the long period of two thousand three 
hundred sixty and eight years. It begins with creation and 
ends with the death of the patriarch Joseph. The other books 
of Moses bring us down to the year of the world 2553. All this 
history antedates any authentic records of the human race now 
extant in any nation or language. 

But the portions of Genesis assigned to the different epocha 
of human history are most singularly and significantly dispro- 
portionate. Why is it that eight-fiftieths, or eight chapters of 
fifty, are devoted to the history of creation and of the flood, and 
to the religious and political conditions of the human family, for 
the long period of one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years ; 
while the single history of one Abraham occupies thirteen-fifti- 
eths, and that of his descendants, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, 
twenty-four fiftieths ! — ? Indeed, the fortunes of this Joseph 
occupy a larger space than that assigned to the first two thou- 
sand years of the world. This great disproportion in the details 
of things can be satisfactorily explained only in one way. That 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 27 

apprehended, and the plan and structure of the inspired writings 
can be properly understood and appreciated. 

" The testimony of Jesus/' says a divine oracle, " is the spirit 
of prophecy.'^ It is, 1 presume, as truly the spirit of sacred his- 
tory.— Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega of the Bible, because 
the Bible is the history of redemption. Every thing takes pre- 
cedence, occupies space, and engages attention in the direct ratio 
of its bearings upon the development and consummation of human 
redemption. Take, for example, the antediluvian age : from the 
moment the gracious intimation that the woman's offspring would 
one day ** bruise the serpent's head" is given, its development 
becomes the all-engrossing theme both of history and of pro- 
phecy. Persons, places, and events occupy a prominence and 
conspicuity as they happen to be connected with that grand 
central idea of the whole Bible. The altar, the victim, and the 
priest appear in the history of Cain and Abel ; while blood and 
faith triumph in Abel's martyrdom. Cain's history, so far as 
it is given, is but the shade in the picture, and a few samples 
of his descendants illustrate the whole history of men in the 
flesh. He founded a city, and called it after the name of his 
son Enoch. From Enoch descended the sons and daughters of 
men. Polygamy was the consummation of his principles in the 
fifth generation. His offspring were brass and iron manufac- 
turers, and the first that invented portable houses, instruments 
of music, and that handled the harp and the organ. Tu-bal- 
cain, or Vulcan, and his sister Naamah, inventor of the distaff 
and the spindle, are amongst his renowned issue. Not one 
saint is named in the whole posterity of Cain, the first-born of 
woman and the prototype of religious persecutors. 

The history of Cain and Abel being given, because of its con- 
nection with the altar and the sacrifice, the historian, prompted 
by the Spirit of revelation, opens the illustrious lineage of the 
promised seed of woman ; and that becomes, from this moment, 
the backbone of the whole Bible — the grand meridian line of all 
divine history and prophecy. — Seth is born to fill the place of 
Abel, and his progeny is counted, one by one, down to Jesus of 
Bethlehem and of Nazareth. Thus the patriarchal chain of Mes- 
siah's ancestors down to the Flood are Adam, Seth, Enos, 
Cainan, Mehalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. 
From the Fall of Man to the Flood, all that is transmitted to us 
of human affairs or of divine providence connects itself with 



28 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

these ten patriarchs. After the Flood, Noah's three sons engross 
our attention. Their connection with all the ancient nations of 
the earth is briefly but most interestingly sketched. But so soon 
as reasons are given in the history of Shem, of Ham, and 
Japheth, for a special providence in dispersing them over the 
whole earth, and in selecting the younger of these three to stand 
at the head of the postdiluvian line of the child of promise, the 
historian confines himself to the royal and sacerdotal line of the 
Messiah. He next counts off ten other progenitors of our Lord. 
These are Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Keu, Serug, 
Nahor, Terah, Abraham. The promise given to Eve and re- 
peated to Shem, is still further developed and committed to 
Abraham. To the end of Genesis we have five other noble links 
in this patriarchal chain. These are Isaac, Jacob, Judah^ 
Phares, and Ezrom. Genesis then gives us in all five-and-twenty 
of our Lord's ancestors, and just so much of human affairs as is 
necessary to their favourable introduction to our notice. Joseph's 
history, so pre-eminently connected with the whole drama of 
man's redemption, and terminating in the migration and settle- 
ment of the symbolic nation in Egypt, is more minutely and par- 
ticularly detailed than any one individual history in the ^yq 
books of Moses. His other books, occupying but forty years' 
incidents, add no new names to the illustrious line. After the 
books of Joshua and of Judges, the book of Ruth is inserted to 
connect Judah and the promise made to him with David through 
Boaz, Obed, and Jesse — making the line from Ezrom to succeed 
thus : — ^Aram, Aminadab, Naashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, 
David. 

The beautiful story of Ruth, the Moabitish saint, inserted for 
the express purpose of connecting David with Judah, Abraham, 
and Seth, and of completing through him the illustrious line 
down to the Virgin's Son, is itself a demonstration of the truth 
of our assumption, viz., that the plan of the Bible is to reveal 
God to man and man to himself, by placing one family under a 
special providence, and in making all its fortunes first the sub- 
ject of prophecy, and then of history, from the beginning to the 
end of the world.'^ God meant more than any man has yet com- 
prehended when he said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. This is my name for ever and 

* See Ruth, chapter iv. 18^22. 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM* 29 

my memorial to all generations/' The history of that family?- is, 
then, a documentary revelation of the attributes of God, and 
especially of his truthfulness and covenant-keeping character ; 
while all other histories of all other families serve as night to 
day in the contrast, to present his people in all the most favour- 
able attitudes before us, and to induce all men to place them- 
selves under the vrings of his almighty protection. 

Soon as David ascends the throne and his family obtains the 
sceptre of the twelve tribes, the royal lineage is in safe-keeping. 
The books of Samuel, the Kings, and the Chronicles, down to 
the end of Old Testament history, not only faithfully preserve 
tlie records of the nation, but afford a thousand developments 
of human nature and of divine providence, full of instruction to 
all mankind in all ages of the world, 

Matthew and Luke open the New Testament history by giving 
from the archives of the nation and the rolls of lineage the an- 
cestry of Jesus up to Adam ; — the former, by his legal father, 
Joseph ; the latter, by his natural mother, Mary. By the legal 
paternal line he is the sixtieth in descent from Adam ; while by 
the maternal line he is the seventy-sixth. The apostolic writings 
give the history of the Jews down to the crucifixion of their pro- 
mised Deliverer, the repudiation of them as the nation and peo- 
ple of God, and the adoption of believing Jews and Gentiles, as 
one in the Lord Jesus, in their stead ; while the prophecies of the 
New Testament indicate the destiny of Israel according to the 
flesh, as well as Israel according to the spirit, till the final consum- 
mation. Such is the plan of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. 

From the plan of the Bible, as well as from its philosophy, its 
claims upon the faith and admiration of mankind may be strongly 
argued. Its philosophy is. That without piety no man can be 
happy ; and that with it, any man in any outward circumstances 
may be happy to the full extent of his capacity for human enjoy- 
ment. But human enjoyment is neither animal nor angelic en- 
joyment. Animal or sensitive enjoyments are supreme and ex- 
clusive in the brutal creation, but subordinate in man. Intel- 
lectual pleasures are necessarily dependent upon the ministry 
which the intellect performs. If the intellect is made subordi- 
nate to the animal instincts, passions, or propensities ; or if the 
intellect is subordinate to moral and spiritual enjoyments, its 
pleasures are essentially different. In the former case they are 
but refined animalism ; in the latter case they are spiritual and 



80 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

divine. In this yiew all human enjoyments are reduced to two 
classes: the one is spiritual, and the other carnal; the one is 
moral, social, and refined; the other is selfish, exclusive, and 
gross ; the one rises, the other sinks to all eternity. 

The philosophy of the Bible is, therefore, the philosophy of 
human happiness, and the only philosophy which commends 
itself to the cultivated understanding of man. No mere rational- 
ist, philosopher, or sage, ever proposed such a view of happiness 
to man. It is peculiar to the Bible. It is an original and divine 
conception, and proves the divine authorship of the book. From 
the object and character of the book of revelation, its divine 
authority can be most triumphantly argued. It is a book equally 
worthy of God to bestow, and of man to receive. Dictated by 
infinite benevolence, characterized by supreme intelligence, and 
perfectly adapted to the genius of human nature, it is worthy 
of universal reception and of the most profound and grateful 
homage. 

Its plan is superhuman and divine. No one class of men 
of any one age could have formed such a plan as that of writing 
the history of one family for seven thousand years, and of incor- 
porating with that history a scheme of eternal redemption from 
sin. And yet it is as clear as the sun in a cloudless sky, that 
Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah — with all the Jewish 
historians, prophets, and poets, during a period of fifteen hun- 
dred years, were, without concert, conference, or voluntary co- 
operation, prosecuting just such an object without seeming to 
comprehend it. And not they only, but all the patriarchs before 
Moses, all the renowned fathers of mankind from Adam to Moses, 
were orally transmitting such information to their descendants ; 
and all the scribes of the Jews, from Malachi to Matthew, were 
in their chronicles of Jewish times recording such incidents and 
events as make out the entire history of the family of Jesus 
Christ from Adam to Joseph, his legal father, and to Mary, his 
natural mother. This was done but once in all time, and for a 
purpose just as peculiar and singular as the Bible itself. 

A skeptic or an infidel might as well argue that king Hiram's 
thirty thousand woodsmen and builders, and king Solomon's one 
hundred and fifty thousand hewers, «tone-cutters, and carriers 
of burdens, with his three thousand three hundred supervisors 
and directors were severally and individually working each one 
after a plan of his own ; and that without concert or pre-arrange- 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 31 

ment, all their materials were fitted up into a temple the most 
splendid and magnificent that ever stood upon this earth — the 
wonder of the world and the glory of architecture, — as that shep- 
herds, husbandmen, fishermen, artisans, historians, lawgivers, 
kings, living in different countries, in ages very remote, speaking 
diverse languages, and of every peculiarity of character, could 
have, either by accident or design, got up such a volume as the 
Bible, marked in every page by a peculiar originality of charac- 
ter, a most striking unity of design, pervading an almost infinite 
variety of circumstantial details, and in a style the most simple, 
artless, and sublime. The fortuitous concourse of atoms into a 
universe, indicative of designs and adaptations as innumerable 
as the stars, as countless as the sands of the sea, would be a 
rational hypothesis, a plausible and credible theory, compared 
with such an assumption. 

The divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is, indeed, fully 
proved by the divine wisdom and knowledge contained in the 
record itself. — The author is known in his works. God^s book 
is full of divinity. It reveals what human wisdom cannot fathom, 
but what human wisdom must believe and approve. God has 
not only affixed his sign manual to the mission of Apostles and 
Prophets in the miracles which they wrought, and in the pro- 
phecies which they uttered ; but he has stamped upon the trea- 
sures of wisdom and knowledge which it contains, and incorpo- 
rated with all its gracious and sublime developments, its holy 
doctrine, its heavenly spirit, and its divine precepts, the indubi- 
table indications of its superhuman, supernatural, and divine 
origin. But we shall, for the present, only attempt to prove its 
divine origin by the indirect method of reducing to an absurdity 
a contrary hypothesis. — Paul is my example and my authority 
for an occasional assault upon the fortress of error by showing 
what will result from its admission to be truth, or, which is the 
same thing in other words, by assuming the truth to be a lie. 
He says, "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not 
Christ raided. If Christ be not raised, then all men are in their 
sins — preaching is useless, faith is vain; we Apostles are all 
liars, and all that have died in attestation of it have volunta- 
rily destroyed themselves.^^ So let us reason in this case, in as 
few words as those found in that admirable argument in proof 
of the resurrection. "We assume that the gospel is true or not 
true. If it is true, it ought to be obeyed ; if it is not true, it 



32 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM* 

ought to be disproved and repudiated. All the world so far 
agrees with our postulata. "Well, now, say it is not true ; in 
other words, it is a falsehood — a lie. What then ? 

1st. There is not a credible history in the world ; because no his- 
tory possesses so great a number or variety of the attributes 
of truth or reasons of faith as the gospel history. The original 
witnesses were plain, common-sense, ordinary, matter-of-fact 
men. They were eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of the facts 
which they attest. Their occupations of life were favourable to 
having good eyes and good ears. They were chiefly fishermen. 
The facts which they relate, and which constitute the gospel, 
were sensible facts — subjected not to one sense, but to several 
senses. So speaks one of them : — '* That which we have heard, 
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, 
and our hands have handled of the word of life, declare we unto 
you."* They had nothing to gain, but every thing temporal 
and fleshly to lose by the proclamation of these facts. They made 
themselves, '* of all men the most miserable." Their life, if their 
doctrine be not true, is more marvellous than their doctrine: no 
men ever gave stronger evidence of truthfulness than they. If 
they cannot be believed, no historian can. There is, then, no 
credible history in the world, 

2d. In the second place, There is no sincerity in martyrdom. 
It is an indisputable fact that the Messiah and most of the Apos- 
tles were martyrs. They died for what they said, and not for 
what they did. — Mankind in all ages concur in the opinion that 
the strongest proof of any man's honesty or sincerity is his 
dying voluntarily in attestation of the truth of what he affirms. 
We allege that martyrdom does not prove the truth of a man's 
opinions, but only that he sincerely believes them. Sincerity is 
no test of truth in any matter of theory or speculation. But in 
all matters of sensible facts tested by the senses, seen or heard 
by many persons and on many occasions, sincerity in the avowal 
of them is proof of the certainty of them. Now as martyrdom 
proves sincerity, and sincerity on the part of witnesses of sensible 
facts proves the facts — the gospel, being founded on sensible facts, 
seen often, and seen by many, is true, or there is no sincerity in 
martyrdom. 

3d. If the gospel facts are false, then learning and talent are 

* John, 1 Ep. chap. i. verse 1. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 33 

of 710 Mue, The value of talent and learning consists in the 
power they impart to their possessor to acquire and communi- 
cate truth. Now it needs not to be proved, that innumerable 
multitudes of the most talented and learned men in all the ages 
of Christianity from its first promulgation till now, have been 
enrolled amongst the friends and advocates of the Bible. Nay, 
indeed, in all ages the literature and science of Christendom 
have been on the side of the Bible, and mainly employed in its 
service. If, then, the Bible be not true, learning and talent 
neither protect us from error, nor assist us in the acquisition 
of truth ! 

4th. But again, On the admission that the gospel is not true, 
there is no connection between goodness and truth — no excellency in 
truth. The best men in the world have always been those that 
believed in the Bible. The most humane, benevolent, public- 
spirited, philanthropic, and virtuous men that ever lived, whose 
virtuous examples have been an honour to human nature, have 
been believers in the truth of the Bible. Now if the Bible be a 
cunningly devised fable, then there is no necessary connection 
between truth and moral excellence, any more than^etweeen 
error and virtue. There is, then, no excellency in truth. 

5th. Still farther. If the Bible be not true, falsehood, impos- 
ture, and error are better than truth. The reason is obvious — the 
Bible is either true or false. If false, those who believe it be- 
lieve a lie. But that lie has done more to civili'ze, refine, purify, 
and adorn human nature, than all the atheism, infidelity, and 
philosophy of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and Kome. Surely, then, 
the Christian lie is better than all the philosophic truth of all 
ages and all nations. Hence we infer that if the Bible be false, 
error and fraud work better for mankind than honesty and 
truth. 

6th. But again — If the Bible be false, as all who reject it 
affirm, then there is no reason in the universe; or, what is the 
same thing, creation is a maze without a plan, and nature works 
in vain. We must judge of the unknown by the known. Now 
the fortunes of our planet are our data for the fortunes of all 
other planets. The fortunes of its inhabitants are, so far as 
nature or reason is our guide, the fortunes of the inhabitants 
of all other planets. Amongst earth's inhabitants there is one 
class of beings for whose creation and comfort all others do 
exist. Man is the name of that class of beings. He is the end 



S4 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

of this terrestrial creation. If he be lost — ^for ever lost, all is 
lost. Crops of vegetables annually spring out of the earth, and 
return to it again. — Races of animals feed upon them, and die. 
They, like their food, but enrich the earth. Day and night suc- 
ceed each other. Years revolve. The earth turns upon its 
axis, wheels around its orbit, feeds and buries all its tenantry. 
Man himself and his food alike perish for ever. 

Now what is gained by the whole operation ? If man lives 
not again — if the Bible be not true, nature labours in vain : and 
if there be a Creator, he works without a plan, and toils for no 
purpose. Nature is an abortion, and the whole machinery of the 
universe a splendid failure. There is no reason for creation — 
for nature ; and there is no reason in either. If, then, the Bible 
be not true— if the history it gives of man, his creation, his fall, 
his recovery, be not true — in one word, if the gospel be a lie and 
the Bible false, no living man can give one good reason for the 
existence of our planet, or that of any sun or system in that 
collation of worlds and systems which compose this mysterious 
and sublime universe. 

But iffhe Bible be not true, it is not enough to say — 1st. That 
there is not a credible history in the world. 2d. That there is 
no sincerity in martyrdom. 3d. That human learning and 
talent are of no value. 4th. That there is no excellency in truth. 
5th. That falsehood, imposition, and error, are better than truth. 
And 6th. That there is no reason in the universe ; but we must 
also add, that there is no God ! 
- Nature ends in ruin — the world is full of sin and misery — 
there is no reason for any thing— man lives for no purpose — no 
kind intimation has been given him of any great and good first 
CAUSE ; which is but equivalent to saying there is no good being 
above man — no one of almighty power, who could speak to him, 
enlighten him, or comfort him, touching his origin, his nature, his 
relations, his obligations, or his destiny ; and that is equivalent to 
saying that there is no supremely Good One, no Creator, or Pro- 
prietor of man. For who can imagine a supreme intelligence, of al- 
mighty power and of infinite benevolence — who made man and in- 
spired him with such desires after the knowledge of himself — with 
such longings after happiness perfect and complete — and who has 
himself the faculty of speech, the power of communicating the 
knowledge of himself to man ; and yet has never spoken to him, 
never enlightened him on the only point vital to all his interests, 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 85 

his eternal destiny ; and compared with which all other enjoy- 
ments possible to man as he now is, are not in the proportion 
of an atom to a universe, or a moment to a boundless eternity ! 
Such an hypothesis is at war with every oracle of reason, with 
every decision of common sense, and with all the analogies of the 
universe. It cannot be: it is impossible. There is a God — 
there is a Book of God — ^there is truth in history — there is sin- 
cerity in martyrdom — there is value in talent and learning — ^there 
is an excellency in truth — truth is better than error, falsehood, 
and imposture — and there is reason in the universe, and a glo- 
rious destiny for man. 

The Bible has been proved to be a divine revelation as many 
millions of times as there are individuals who have believed it 
to the salvation of their souls. But it never has been proved to 
be false to a single individual of the human race. Nor can it 
ever be so proved. No man who understands what he says, 
can in truth affirm that he believes it to be false. Who can be- 
lieve any thing to be false without oral or written testimony ? 
But no living man has either oral or written testimony contra- 
dicting the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets : therefore, 
in the absence of such testimony, he can no more believe it to 
be false than a blind man can see the sun. A man may doubt 
whether it be true ; but to believe it to be false, or to be assured 
that it is not true, is altogether impossible. 

Some persons object to the Bible — because, as they say, its 
divine inspiration is yet a subject of debate. Such thinkers and 
reasoners are grossly defective in reason and education. Did 
ever any one hear of any thing that has been proved to all the 
world ? Is there a single historic fact that is believed by every 
human being ? If there be not one, then every historic fact is 
yet in debate. But shall we say that no proposition is proved, 
because it is not proved to the whole world ! The gospel will 
never be out of debate while there is one infidel or skeptic in the 
world. This is, however, no more a disparagement of its truth, 
or its claims upon all mankind, than it is an argument against 
any proposition, fact, or testimony, that all the world has not yet 
acquiesced in its truth. 

We cannot believe by proxy, as nations, as empires, or as 
worlds. We must each one believe for himself. Hence the 
evidence must be considered, understood, and appreciated by 
every individual for himself. But the fact that millions of all 



86 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

orders of mind, the greatest and most gifted of our race, have 
believed it to be true — multitudes of them even to martyrdom 
for its sake ; and that not one individual can believe it to be 
false, is a consideration that ought to silence every modest in- 
quirer, and, were it possible, cover with shame those reckless 
and senseless dogmatists who declaim against a book of whose 
contents and whose history they truly comprehend nothing, be- 
cause it is yet in debate. On their showing, there is nothing 
credible or worthy of universal acceptance, because there is 
nothing that is not a matter of doubt or disbelief with some 
person. But we argue not the question of the Bible's truth 
with such opponents. We have not given a tithe of the topics 
from which its truth is irrefragably argued. Enough, it is pre- 
sumed, to convince the candid whose minds can discern the 
force of argument, is contained in the preceding hints and 
reflections. 

Christianity has stood erect in the midst of all sorts of adver- 
saries — Jews, Pagans, Turks, Infidels, &c. ; and, like the pillars 
of Hercules, the rock of Gibraltar, or the everlasting mountains, 
bids defiance to all the billows of the ocean, and to all the tem- 
pests of Satan, to shake it from its immovable basis. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE BIBLE. 



That the Bible contains a revelation from God, is susceptible 
of every variety and degree of evidence which guides men in the 
affairs of this life. We have no species of moral evidence that 
affords to mankind a higher degree of assurance than that on 
which Prophets and Apostles demand our unwavering confi- 
dence. If we admit that there is truth in history, sincerity in 
martyrdom, value in learning, advantage in talent, excellency 
in truth, reason in the universe, or a Creator in the heavens ; 
then must we admit that the Bible is inspired by infinite wis- 
dom, and presented to man by his Almighty Father and Bene- 
factor. But as we have given a specimen of the indirect evi- 
dence in proof of its divine authorship in our first chapter, we 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 37 

shall now exhibit a sample or two of the direct proof which it 
offers in support of its claims upon the assent of our understand- 
ing and the consent of our hearts. 

The grand climax of moral evidence consists in the possibility, 
the probability, and absolute certainty of any fact, event, or 
proposition. When we can show that the fact presented in any 
proposition is possible, that it is probable, that it is absolutely 
certain, we have gone through all the forms of argument upon 
which the truth of any proposition is admitted. Beyond these, 
reason asks no more, because she can give no more. True, 
the last implies the former two ; yet there is an advantage to 
most minds in ascending, step by step, to any commanding 
eminence. 

Now the grand proposition is, that God has spoJcen to man in 
the Bible. That it is possible is evident from the fact, that God 
thunders in the clouds, murmurs in the tempests, whispers in 
the breeze. Still more evident from the fact, that he 'has taught 
the lion to roar for his prey, the beasts of the forest to com- 
mune with their companions, and the birds of the air to soothe 
the human ear with their melodies. But most evident from the 
fact, that he has given to man a tongue to speak, and an ear to 
listen to the voice of his brother. The inference, then, is, that 
God possesses the power which he has imparted to man ; that 
he who taught man to reveal his mind and will to his compa- 
nions, and even to some domestic animals that wait upon his 
word, has the power to reveal his own mind and will to his 
creature man. 

But we advance a step farther, and assume that it is probable 
that God has spoken to man. This we argue from the fact that 
God can speak, that man desires to hear him speak, and that 
he has created no rational desire in man for which he has not 
made a proper provision, either in himself or in his works. I 
need not ask the question, as if any one doubted it, whether 
there is any desire in man comparable to any desire of life ? 
Nor need I attempt to prove to any one, that of all knowledge 
imaginable there is none so desirable to man as the knowledge 
of his own origin and of his ultimate destiny. Now, as God 
has created these desires, and he is supremely kind and bounti- 
ful in all his original creations, and in his constant providence 
for all the reasonable and lawful wants of man, is it not pro- 



^S ANTJICEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

bable that at some time or other he has made a verbal or oral 
revelation of himself in some way intelligible to man ? 

But in the second place, I argue the probability that God has 
spoken to man from the indisputable fact, that man himself 
speaks. Some, I know, assume that language is natural to 
man, because he has organs of pronunciation; but in good 
gense, and in good logic, one might as reasonably argue that 
Greek or Hebrew is natural to man, because he has the power 
of understanding or of pronouncing those languages. But who 
ever spoke a language that he did not first learn from another ? 
We all have our vernacular — our mother tongue. We could as 
easily conceive of one born without a mother, as of one speak- 
ing Greek that did not first hear it. But as there certainly was 
one man who never had a mother, or a father, that man could 
have no mother tongue — no vernacular. God, then, must have 
taught man to speak viva voce ; inasmuch as language is only 
an imitation of distinct intelligible sounds ; and as all language 
comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of another, {for 
the deaf have no words ^ though they have organs of pronunciation,) 
we must, in all reason, conclude that the first human speaker 
had heard God himself speak. 

So Moses, in accordance with our reasoning, teaches that God 
talked with Adam, and first gave names to things. Moses also 
informs us that he left one class of objects for Adam to name, 
and that ** whatever Adam called every living creature, that 
became the name of it.'' 

No class of linguists, rhetoricians, or philosophers, has ever • 
been able to explain the origin of language on the principles oi 
human nature. They agree in one point, viz. that it was not 
originally a conventional thing ; that no company of men could 
assemble to discuss or decide upon it; which is, if properly 
comprehended, an unanswerable proof of a superhuman origin. 
So, with the immortal Newton, we conclude, that " God gave to 
man reason and religion by giving him the use of words.'' 

That all mankind had at first one language and one and the 
same religious faith, is very clearly and logically inferable from 
the most ancient traditions, and from the structure of the three 
great dialects of speech from which the modern gibberish of 
nations has descended. This, however, is a task not to be im- 
posed upon us, nor undertaken by us, in order to the consume 
mation of our present argument. The strong probability that 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. M 

6od has spoken to man is, we presume, already establislied from 
the simple fact that man himself speaks ; and that no man can 
give himself intelligible language, but must receive it from 
another. 

But we shall ascend from the possible and the probable to the 
absolutely certain evidence which the Bible itself furnishes, that 
God has, in that volume, spoken to man. The evidences which 
that mysterious and sublime book tenders to those who approach 
its sacred pages with a candid temper and a becoming reverence, 
are its doctrines, its precepts, its promises, its miracles, and its 
prophecies. To these are added the testimonies of unbelieving 
Jews and Pagans, living cotemporaneously with the periods of 
its development and establishment in the world. 

Now, as the miracles and the prophecies are matters of record 
in the book itself, as much as its doctrine, its precepts, or its pro- 
mises, they are equally matters of faith, because alike matters 
of sacred history. Still, portions of the prophecies, not fulfilled 
when the last of the Prophets and Apostles died, being yet in 
progress of fulfilment, afibrd good authority for classifying the 
evidence of the divine origin of the Bible under three distinct 
ieads — the intrinsic, the extrinsic, and the mixed. 

The intrinsic evidences consist in the doctrine, the precepts, 
the promises, the miracles, and the prophecies, published and 
fulfilled in the records of the book itself. The extrinsic are the 
testimonies of unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, given to the facts 
reported in the Old and New Testament records. The mixed 
are its prophecies fulfilled since the book was completed, those 
now fulfilling, and those hereafter to be fulfilled, together with 
those monumental institutions appointed in the Holy Book and 
observed ever since its publication, down to the present day. 

Now of all these classes of argument and evidence, we shall 
select but one, or a part of one of them, in demonstration of 
what we mean by the absolute certainty which the enlightened 
Christian enjoys, that God has, in very deed, spoken to man. 
That shall be a portion of the class of mixed evidences. 

Nothing, it is alleged by some, produces absolute certainty 
but the evidence of sense. But even our senses sometimes de- 
ceive us. There is, perhaps, something better than the mere 
evidence of sense. The doctrine and the miracle combined, or 
the thing seen by the outward eyes corresponding with the pro- 
mise of it, is better than either apart. They are, indeed, two 



40 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

witnesses instead of one. The doctrine speaks for God, and so 
does the miracle. A prophecy written in a book a thousand 
years ago, fulfilled before our eyes, is the highest demonstration 
that can be given to man of the authenticity and inspiration of the 
book in which it is written. The proposition and the miracle 
must agree. They must be equally worthy of having God for 
their author. 

But under the same miracle we include more than is some- 
times designated by that very indefinite term. The raising of a 
dead man to life by a word, and the foretelling of a complex 
event, not depending on the laws of nature, a hundred or a 
thousand years before it happens, are equally demonstrations of 
the divine presence and power in the person professing to be 
sent by the Creator of the universe. 

With us, a miracle is a display of supernatural power in attesta- 
tion of some proposition presented by God to man for his accept- 
ance. Miracles are, therefore, signs manual attached to com- 
missions to authentic messengers from God. They are always 
vouchsafed to special messengers to gain special credit to their 
messages. 

By a supernatural power we understand a power that holds in 
obedience the laws of nature, according to the will of him that 
possesses it. It is a power that suspends, governs, or directs 
the laws of nature according to the pleasure of its possessor, but 
with reference to public advantage. Such was the power vouch- 
safed to Moses, to Jesus, to many of the Prophets, to all the 
Apostles, and to some of the Evangelists of Jesus Christ. 

Of this supernatural power there are two sorts — one that ex- 
tends beyond the physical laws of nature ; and one that extends 
beyond the intellectual power of man. The foretelling of some 
complex future event, not depending upon any human know- 
ledge of the operations of matter or of mind, is as clear a proof 
of supernatural intellectual power, as the removal of a mountain 
by a word would be of a supernatural physical power. A man 
that could now predict the fortunes of a city, a family, or a 
nation, for one or five hundred years to come, would give as 
clear indications that he possessed the Spirit of God and was 
divinely commissioned, as if he raised the dead. 

But they are not always proofs to the same persons. Sensible 
and outward displays of physical power — such as the miracles 
of our Lord and his Apostles, were addressed to the senses of 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 41 

Irving men, in support of their pretensions to a divine call and 
mission. But the foretelling of an event long distant is not a 
proof to any contemporary auditor of the divine mission of the 
Prophet. The miracle is developed in the accomplishment, and 
not in the uttering, of the prediction. 

When Jesus foretold that within that generation the temple 
would be so razed to its foundation that " not one stone should be 
left upon another," not the prediction, but the accomplishment 
of it, was a miracle to those who witnessed that awful cata- 
strophe. But who will not admit that those who had heard him 
utter the prediction, or those who had often heard, or read it, 
before the siege of Jerusalem, and who afterwards saw the city 
and the temple in ruins, according to the prediction, had just as 
ample proof and as full assurance that he spoke the truth, and 
was sent by God, as they had who heard him call Lazarus of 
Bethany out of his grave, and who witnessed his resurrection in 
obedience to the call ? The fulfilment of pro]!)hecies long since 
uttered, written, and published, is, therefore, we argue, a per- 
fect assurance of the divine mission and inspiration of the Pro- 
phet to all who live contemporary with the accomplishment, or 
even after the accomplishment, provided only that the document 
containing the prophecy was certainly extant before the con- 
summation. 

The way is now open to a full development of the assumption, 
viz. that we who now live have just as perfect an assurance 
of the truth of the sayings and doings of Prophets and Apostles 
as they had who lived in their times ; or, in other words, that it 
is not only possible and probable, but absolutely certain that God 
has spoken to man. 

An induction of fulfilled prophecies, equal to a volume, might 
be exhibited from the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures. 
The Bible is the only book in the world, now or at any former 
period, whose prophecies are almost as numerous as its pages. 
No other volume presumes to give the whole history of time and 
of man but the Bible. The book, as before shown, contains the 
history of one family for seventy generations, and foretells its 
future fortunes to the end of time. The Ishmaelites, the Idu- 
means, the Israelites, (descended from Ishmael, Esau, and 
Jacob,) and their countries, together with Egypt, Syria, Moab, 
Ammon, Amalek, Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, Nineveh, as well as 
the Chaldean, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman Empires, with 

4* 



42 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

all the fortunes of the Christian church, are written out on the 
living pages of the sacred book of Prophets and Apostles. 
Persons, places, and events, ages before their appearance, are 
foretold with the accuracy of history, by Him who speaketh of 
**the things that are noV' yet in existence, "as though they 
were." I shall, however, only illustrate and exemplify in two 
or three particulars. 

Had we room for a display of singular items occurring in the ful- 
filment of ancient prophecy, as a specimen of the unerring agree- 
ment between the prediction and its accomplishment, we would 
quote and comment upon Deuteronomy, chapter xxviii., from the 
48th to the 58th verse inclusive. In this passage, Moses pre- 
dicts the final catastrophe, and ruin of his own nation by the 
Romans, fifteen Jiundred and twenty years before it happened. 

He specifies various particular characteristics of that calamity. 
We shall notice but ten of them :— 1. The people or nation by 
whom they should be destroyed, were to come from a remote 
country. 2. Their armies were to come as an eagle to its prey. 

3. They were to speak a language unknown to the Jews. 

4. They are described to be 2, fierce and savage people, not respect- 
ing age, sex, or condition. 5. They were first to station them- 
selves among them, and then to devour their provisions. 6. They 
should besiege them in all their high-walled towns and fortresses 
throughout their whole country. 7. They were to be reduced 
to such distress and famine as to eat their own oflTspring. 
8. The most afi'ectionate brothers would become evil-disposed and 
cruel to one another ; as also husbands and wives, parents and 
children. 9. The most delicate and tender-hearted ladies would 
devour their own ofispring. 10. They should perpetrate these 
awful deeds secretly^ through fear of being robbed of their re- 
past. 

Let any one now read the account which Josephus gives of 
the fall of Jerusalem and the final calamities of that devoted 
nation, and see whether these ten items were not accomplished 
to the letter ! Let him read to the close of his narrative of the 
delicate and elegant lady, who, in every circumstance, verified 
the prediction, in killing, roasting, and devouring secretly her 
own innocent and beloved infant, and say whether Moses did 
not speak by the inspiration of God.* 

* Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book yi. chap. 3, page 553. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 4S 

To those who witnessed these events, and who had in their 
hands the book of Deuteronomy, then extant in Hebrew and 
Greek, may we not say that a miracle was exhibited, as indis- 
putable as any miracle performed by Moses or Jesus in the 
presence of living thousands of spectators ? But, to us, both 
the prophecy and the accomplishment are matters of record, 
and therefore matters of faith and not of sight. 

We shall, therefore, advance one step farther, and show a mira- 
cle — a display of supernatural intellectual power — by presenting 
a Jew at the proper angle of vision. Had any man now living 
the power of raising the dead, unless we accompanied him to 
the grave and looked on at the proper distance, we could not 
witness a miracle. So, unless we open the eyes of our under- 
standing, and look with attention and discrimination in this 
case, we cannot see a miracle. Behold this Jew I Whose son 
is he? 

His father Abraham was born three thousand eight hundred 
and forty-one years ago ! His father circumcised himself and 
his long-promised son Isaac, some three thousand seven hundred 
and forty years ago. From Isaac sprang Jacob, Judah ; — the 
Jews. That nation, counting from the birth of its founder, was 
contemporary with the Assyrian empire almost fourteen centu- 
ries. It was also contemporary with the Modes and the Per- 
sians, with the Greeks and the Komans, during their entire 
continuance, and now survives the last of them some thirteen 
centuries 1 But in all this so strange, so unprecedented an 
occurrence, where is the miracle? The Romans, under their 
general Titus, saw no miracle in the destruction of the nation, 
the city, and the temple, because they had not the prediction in 
their eye. Nor can any one see a miracle in this Jew, unless 
he have the prediction in his eye. We shall now read the pre- 
diction, while this circumcised Jew stands before us. 

Jeremiah was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar, and flou- 
rished from the 629th to the 588th year before Christ. About 
the 600th year before Christ, or 2445 years ago, he writes the 
following prediction, chapter xxx. 1-16. " I am with thee, 
Israel ! saith the Lord, to save thee ; ihougli I mahe a full end 
of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not 
MAKE A FULL END OF THEE ; but I will corrcct thcc in measure, 
and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.^' "All they 

THAT DEVOUR THEE SHALL BE DEVOURED, AND ALL THINE ADVER- 



44 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

SARiES, EYERY ONE OF THEM, shall Qo ifito cajpUvUy, TTuy tliat 
spoil thee shall he a spoil, and all they that prey upon thee 
will I give for a prey J* Where noAV are the nations that preyed 
npon the sons of Abraham ! Where are their adversaries — the 
Assyrian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek, and the Roman people ! 
There lives not the man, in the four quarters of the globe, who 
can say that in his veins flovrs one drop of the blood of an As- 
syrian, a Medo-Persian, a Greek, or a Roman ; vrhile millions 
of the house of Israel, of the seed of Abraham, of the Jewish 
people, can severally say that in their veins flows the blood of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ! Is not, then, every circumcised Jew 
a miracle, a proof supernatural, that God spake by Jeremiah 
and the Prophets ? 

Two predictions are here fulfilled and verified to the letter. 
All these great masses are lost, being mingled with, and "de- 
voured'' by, their conquerors. But they that have conquered, 
disinherited, and dispersed the Jews, could not devour them ; 
for the Lord said, ''I will never make a full end of thee J ^ The 
destruction of the one and the preservation of the other consti- 
tute two witnesses for the Bible, and literally fulfil a promise 
made to Abraham when leaving Ur of Chaldea, three thousand 
seven hundred and sixty-six years ago. "Abraham," said God, 
" I will curse him that curseth thee, and I will be a God to thee 
and to thy seed after thee.'' 

But not once, but often the same promises and prophecies are 
written by the same Prophets, in a language somewhat dijBTerent, 
and on that account the more certain of a fair construction. 
We shall take another example from Jeremiah, chapter xxxi. 35, 
36, 37. " Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light 
by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a 
light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof 
roar ; the Lord of hosts is his name : If those ordinances depart 
from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall 
cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the 
Lord, If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of 
the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed 
of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." Here, 
then, we have a solemn promise from God, that while time en- 
dures, while the world lasts, the Jews shall continue as a dis- 
tinct and peculiar people — a standing miracle, indeed of the 
truth of the Bible. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 45 

Many other peculiarities of the destiny of this awful and 
venerable nation, are clearly pronounced by Moses and their 
other Prophets ; such as the whole details of Deuteronomy, 28th 
chapter, of which I have room but for a single example, verse 
37 : "And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a 
by-word amongst all the nations whither the Lord shall lead 
thee/' Is this true of any other nation ? Do we not hear it al- 
most as often as we hear of the Jews ? Yet Moses foretold it 
three thousand three hundred years ago ! With these predic- 
tions in our hands, and a Jew before our eyes, do we not see a 
miracle — a demonstration of a power supernatural and divine ? 

As to the authenticity and the antiquity of the writings of 
Moses, we happen to have three copies of them, kept by differ- 
ent nations, centuries before Jesus Christ — ^the Samaritan, the 
Hebrew, and the Septuagint. He that overthrows these — dis- 
credits, or repudiates them — may, by the same ingenuity and 
learning, discredit and repudiate all antiquity, all history, — sa- 
cred, civil, and ecclesiastical. This prophecy and the law of 
Moses were in the keeping of the most ancient people and lan- 
guages known to any living man. The case we shall, therefore, 
consider as fairly and fully made out, viz. that it is possible and 
probable, nay, absolutely certain, that God has spoken to man in 
the Law and in the Prophets. 

But some one may ask for some miracle now extant, in proof 
of the inspiration of the Christian Apostles. We might hand 
such a one the Apocalypse ; but, being a book of symbols, and 
not, like the prophecies we have quoted, written in a plain, un- 
figurative historic style, we shall give one example from the 
plain, unadorned epistles of Paul. We quote from 2d Thess. 
chap. ii. — " Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 
that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by 
spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of 
Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means : for 
that day shall not come, except there be a falling away first, and 
that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition : who opposeth 
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is wor- 
shipped ; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, show- 
ing himself that he is God. — Kemember ye not, that, when I was 
yet with you, I told you these things ? And now ye know what 
withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the 



46 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

mystery of iniquity doth already work : only he who now letteth, 
will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that 
Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the 
spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his 
coming. Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, 
with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all de- 
ceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because 
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be 
saved." 

The case, or the occasion of this prophecy, is this : — In his 
first epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul had written of " the day 
of the Lord coming as a thief in the night ;" and also of the 
change to be effected upon those who should be alive at his com- 
ing: "For w?e,'' said he, "which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord, shall not anticipate them that are asleep.'^ 
From which sayings some then taught, that the day of the Lord's 
triumph over his enemies' destruction was soon to arrive, just as 
some now teach that souls sleep, because Paul thus spake of the 
dead. To correct these errors, Paul, in his second epistle, by 
the spirit of revelation, informs them that the day of the Lord's 
triumph and the fall of his enemies was then at a great distance. 
This leads him to expatiate on some great intervening events. 
That day shall not come till a great apostasy from Christ to an- 
other personage shall have occurred; till that man of sin, or 
'Hhe man of sin,'' — the lawless one, described by Daniel vii. 25, — 
shall have been revealed. 

The Apostle introduces this mysterious personage as one fre- 
quently spoken of among the Thessalonians. He calls him ''that 
lawless one," or ''the man of sin." He was described by Daniel 
in these words : — " He shall speak [impious] words against the 
Most High, and shall wear out [or consume] the saints of the 
Most High, and shall think [or determine] to change times and 
laws ; and they [the saints] shall be given into his hand until a 
time, times, and the dividing of time ; but the judgment [upon 
him] shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume 
and destroy it unto the endJ' This mystic man of sin, the Pope 
OP Rome, undoubtedly, is described in the following particular 
points : — 

1. He was to be the son or creature of an apostasy from the 
primitive faith and manners taught by the Apostles. As Na- 
poleon the Great grew out of the French Revolution, so did the 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 47 

Pope grow out of the metropolitan hierarchies and councils that 
sprang from the defection of the ancient church. 

2. This man without law opposed, in his pretensions, all that 
were called magistrates, or that were held in reverence by the 
people. 

3. He placed himself upon a throne. 

4. This throne was not erected in a Pagan temple, but in the 
church or temple of God. He is neither a Jewish nor a Pagan, 
but a Christian High-Priest^ Father, or Pope. 

5. He shows himself to be, or sets himself up, as a Vicegerent 
of the Almighty, and calls' himself " His Holiness Lord God 
THE Pope.'' 

6. He was not to appear for some time after the Apostle wrote 
this letter — not, indeed, while the Roman Caesars called them- 
selves severally Pontifex Maximus, ov the Great High-Priest of the 
Gods, 

7. But the letting, or opposing Pagan chiefs, are to be taken 
out of the way. 

8. And when that is done, this mysterious son of perdition 
and of iniquity, called by Paul "^Ae lawless one,'^ should be fully 
developed. 

9. He was to appear, after the modus operandi of the Devil, by 
good words, fair speeches, pretended sanctity — " by all the de- 
ceivableness of unrighteousness," — transforming himself into an 
angel of light, while at heart as black as Erebus. 

10. God, it is affirmed, shall permit all those who loved not 
the truth in their hearts, to be deluded by this " wicked one,'' 
that they all might be condemned as reprobate silver, as spurious 
coin, and removed from the faithful. 

Such is the apostolic profile of the first of the Gregories — of 
him that plucked the golden mitre from the patriarchs of Alex-, 
andria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem — who assumed 
to himself the government of the realms of Purgatory, the dis- 
posal of all the crowns of the heirs of Pagan Rome, and who, 
by miracles of deceit, gained the confidence of an apostate 
church, and consolidated it into a politico-ecclesiastic empire — 
" Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots" — a monster 
once the wonder of the world and the terror of all the excellent 
of the earth. 

Could any one, we may now inquire, not gifted by a plenary 
inspiration from the sempiternal sources of light, to whose eye 



48 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

the past, the present, and the future are all alike, have thus so 
clearly, so comprehensively, and yet so minutely sketched the 
portrait of the most unnatural and mysterious monster of ini- 
quity the vrorld ever saw ? 

And what event more unlikely to happen, than that one pre- 
tending to be the Yicar of Christ, who, twenty years before this 
portrait was sketched, had been crucified between two malefac- 
tors without the gates of Jerusalem — ^than that one assuming to 
be the successor of that Galilean Peter, the fisherman, who had 
neither silver nor gold, and who had forsaken all that he had to 
partake in the toils, the trials, and the honours of his Master, 
would have ever thought of aspiring to such a giddy and am- 
bitious eminence, much less of attaining it and transmitting it 
to a long series of successors through more than twelve full cen- 
turies of years ? 

No one can make himself thoroughly acquainted with the 
origin, progress, and consummation of the Popedom — as de- 
veloped in the lives of the Popes — or spend one year in Rome, 
holding in his hand Daniers portrait of the man of sin in his 
7th chapter, and that of Paul in this letter to the Thessalonians, 
and not see a stupendous miracle in the literal and exact ac- 
complishment of predictions so copious and yet so minute, held 
by the church of all ages and of all nations, and now read in all 
the languages of the civilized world, all literally verified in one 
individual person succeeding another of the same grand cha- 
racteristics, for so many centuries. He that does not, in these 
ample and precise specifications, recognise the finger of God in 
a clearly developed miracle of the most stupendous dimensions, 
has certainly sipped no little of the inebriating cup of delusions 
by which this great sorcerer has enchanted and deceived the 
nations of paganized Christendom. 

Our faith in the gospel, we now conclude from these mere 
specimens of evidence, rests upon the clearest and most solid 
basis. It rests upon miracles well attested by others, and on 
miracles seen by ourselves. It rests upon the purity of its doc- 
trine, the majesty and the excellency of its precepts, the riches, 
the fulness, and the glory of its promises. It rests upon the 
perfect originality, the unity, the grandeur, and the divine sub- 
limity of its adorable Author. It was promulged by the 
purest, the noblest, and the most disinterested heralds that ever 
announced a new doctrine to men. It was sustained by their 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 49 

godly sincerity, their toils, their privations, their endurance of 
evil, and their glorious martyrdom for its sake. It enrols 
amongst its believers and defenders the greatest, the wisest, 
the best, and the most gifted of mankind. All that we love, 
admire, and venerate in human character, appears in the 
boldest relief in the piety, humanity, and universal excellence 
of its friends and admirers. It confers upon all its fully ini- 
tiated disciples, the whole circle of graces that adorn human 
nature, and fills their lives with the largest and richest clusters 
of the delicious fruits of benevolence and mercy. It is just such 
a message from the Throne of heaven as, had we been duly 
enlightened, we might have expected ; such a glorious display 
of divinity and humanity as fully and eternally glorifies God, 
and bestows infinite honour and happiness on man. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BIBLE. — PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. 

The whole Christian religion, in its facts, its precepts, its 
promises, its doctrine, its institutions, is presented to the 
world in a written record. The writings of Prophets and 
Apostles contain all the divine and supernatural knowledge in 
the world. Now, unless, these sacred writings can be cer- 
tainly interpreted, the Christian religion never can be certainly 
understood. Every argument that demonstrates the necessity 
of such a written document as the Bible, equally demonstrates 
the necessity of fixed and certain principles or rules of inter- 
pretation : for without the latter, the former is of no value what- 
ever to the world. 

All the difi*erence, in religious faith, opinion, and sentiment, 
amongst those who acknowledge the Bible, are occasioned by 
false principles of interpretation, or by a misapplication of the 
true principles.' There is no law, nor standard, — literary, moral, 
or religious, — ^that can coerce human thought or action, by only 
promulging or acknowledging it. If a law can effect any thing, 
our actions must be conformed to it. Were all students of the 
Bible taught to apply the same rules of interpretation to its 

5 



50 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

pages, there would be a greater uniformity in opinion and senti- 
ment than ever resulted from the simple adoption of any written 
creed. 

Great unanimity has obtained in most of the sciences in con- 
sequence of the adoption of certain rules of analysis and syn- 
thesis ; for all who work by the same rules come to the same 
conclusions. And may it not be possible that, in this divine 
science of religion, there may yet be a very great degree of 
unanimity of sentiment and uniformity of practice amongst all 
who acknowledge its divine authority ? Is the school of Christ 
the only school in which there can be no unanimity — no pro- 
ficiency in knowledge ? Is the Book of God the only volume 
which can never be understood alike by those who read and 
study it? It cannot be supposed, but by dishonouring God : for, 
as all the children of God are taught by God, if they are neces- 
sarily unintelligent in his oracles and discordant in their views, 
the deficiencies must rather be imputed to the teaQher than to the 
taught ; for the pupils in this school can be taught other 
sciences in other schools, with such uniformity and harmony of 
views as to make it manifest to all that they are the disciples 
of one teacher. 

God^s Book, is, however, put into the hands of men as it was 
first spoken to men : but they have, in some cases, been taught 
not to receive it from God, but from men. They do not con- 
sider that the written hoolc, as well as the spoken word, is ten- 
dered to us under the stipulations of human knowledge — accord- 
ing to the contract between man and man, touching the value 
or meaning of the currency of thought : — ^that every word and 
sentence is to be weighed and tested by the constitutional laws 
and standards of the currency of ideas. 

When one person addresses another, he supposes the person 
addressed competent to interpret his words ; and, therefore, all 
wise and benevolent men select such words and phrases as, in 
their judgment, can be interpreted by those addressed. Every 
speaker proceeds, in all his communications, upon the principle 
that his hearer is an interpreter — that he has not first to be 
taught the science of interpretation ; and that he is bound so to 
express himself, that his hearer may interpret and understand 
his words by an art which is supposed to be native — which is 
indeed universal — common to all nations, barbarous as well as 
civilized. 



I 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 51 

Now, as God is infinitely wise and benevolent, in his oral 
communications to men, he proceeded upon the principle that 
they were, by this native art, competent interpreters of his ex- 
pressions ; for otherwise, his addresses could be of no value. 
He could not even begin to teach them a new art of interpre- 
tation, as respected his communications, but by using their own 
words in the stipulated sense, unless we imagine a miracle in 
every case, and suppose that all his words were to be understood 
by a miraculous interposition. And this idea, if carried out, 
would make a verbal revelation of no value whatever to the 
children of men. 

If human language had never been confounded — if a multi- 
tude of different dialects had not been introduced — -no occasion 
for translating language, as a matter of course, would ever have 
existed. Again, if words and phrases, and the manners and 
customs of mankind were unchangeably fixed, or universally 
the same at all times and in all countries, the art of interpreting 
would have been still more simple than it is ; for so far as it is 
artificial, it is owing to different dialects, idioms, manners, 
customs, and all the varieties which the ever-changing con- 
ditions of society have originated and are still originating. 

At present, however, we would only impress upon the mind 
of the reader, that the very fact that we have a written reve- 
lation — that this revelation was first spoken, then written — sup- 
poses that there is somewhere a native or an acquired art of 
interpretation ; that the persons addressed were already in pos- 
session of that art : for without such an understanding, there 
would have been neither wisdom nor benevolence in giving to 
mankind any verbal communication from God. 

In the present essay, we shall offer a very few remarks upon, 
first, the inspiration of the Bible ; second, the language of the 
Bible ; third, the distribution of the Bible into chapters and 
verses ; fourth, the different dispensations of redemption ; and 
fifth, offer seven cardinal rules of interpretation. 

l5^. Revelation and inspiration, properly so called, have to. do 
only with such subjects as are supernatural, or beyond the 
reach of human intellect, in its most cultivated and elevated 
state. In this sense, " holy men of God spoke as they were 
moved by the Holy Spirit.'' But besides this inspiration of 
original and supernatural ideas, there was another species of 
supernatural aid afforded the saints who wrote the historical 



52 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

parts of the sacred scriptures. There was a revival in their 
minds of what they themselves had seen and heard; and in 
reference to traditions handed down, such a superintendency 
of the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge as excluded the possi- 
Tbility of mistake in the matters of fact which they recorded. 
The promise " of leading into all truth/' and the promise of 
" bringing all things before known to remembrance/' by the 
Holy Spirit, include all that we understand by inspiration in its 
primary and secondary import. 

But while this inspiration precluded the selection of incorrect 
or unsuitable words and sentences, the inspired men delivered 
supernatural communications in their own peculiar modes of 
expressing themselves. To illustrate my meaning by another 
reference to the gift of tongues ; — the subjects of that splendid 
gift in a moment understood those foreign languages as well at 
least as they knew their own ; and in expressing themselves, 
selected such terms as, in their judgment, most fitly and in- 
telligibly communicated their ideas. In other words, their own 
judgment or taste in the selection of terms was not suspended 
by the new language. They used the terms of the new dialect 
as they used the terms of their native tongue ; — chose such as, 
in their judgment, would most clearly and forcibly reveal the 
mind of the Spirit to their hearers. 

We regard the Apostles of Jesus Christ as gifted with a full 
and perfect knowledge of the Christian institution; which 
entitled them, without the possibility of error, to open to man- 
kind the whole will of their Master, whether in the form of fact, 
precept, promise, or threatening ; and as furnished with such 
a knowledge of the signs of those ideas in human language as to 
express this knowledge clearly, accurately, and infallibly to 
mankind. But from what they have spoken and written, we 
are authorized to think that they were as free in the selection 
of words and phrases as I am in endeavoring to communicate 
my views of their inspiration. 

My reasons for this opinion are, that neither the Prophets nor 
the Apostles exhibit any sort of solicitude in always expressing 
themselves in the same words upon the same subject. Nor 
does any one of them seem at all concerned to be consistent 
with himself on all occasions, in using the same words ; either 
in . delivering precepts, uttering promises, or in giving a nar- 
rative of any of tlie incidents of his own life or those of his 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 53 

companions. We have no less than three accofints of Paul's 
conversion and mission to the Gentiles — one from Luke, and 
two from himself; one delivered to the Jews in Jerusalem, and 
one before Agrippa ; yet no two of them agree in word^ though 
in sense they are uniformly the same."^ We have two accounts 
of the conversion of the Gentiles — one by Luke, and one by 
Peter ;t and these are as diverse in words, though as accordant 
in sense, as the narrative of Paul's conversion. We have four 
memoirs of Jesus Christ, brief records of his sayings and 
doings ; and yet no two of them agree in words, in narrating a 
single speech, or in describing a single incident in his life ; 
though there is, as far as they severally relate, a most perfect 
harmony in sense. 

Peter's allusion to the epistles of Paul fully expresses all that 
we desire to teach on the subject. ** Paul wrote,'' says he, 
** according to the wisdom given Mm J' Paul's epistles are, then, 
the development and application of that wisdom given to him, 
expressed in his own style. It may, indeed, be said that, 
guided by wisdom, it was impossible for him to select, on any 
occasion, words or phrases inaccurate, or not clearly and fully ex^ 
pressive of the ideas suggested ; so that, as Paul himself says, he 
explained spiritual things in spiritual words, or in words taught 
by the Spirit, We must, therefore, regard these words as the 
words of the Spirit. It was God's Spirit speaking in them, 
through such words as were natural to them from education and 
habit. According to these views, the English, or German, or 
French New Testament, is as much the word of the Spirit as 
the Greek original, if that original is faithfully translated ; but 
in any other view of inspiration, we have not the word of God, 
nor the teachings of the Spirit, only in the Hebrew and Greek 
originals of the two covenants. 

Before we dismiss this subject, it may be observed that we 
find many things in these writings which are quite natural and 
common, for which inspiration is neither claimed nor pretended ; 
many specimens of which will occur to the reader, when one is 
fairly examined. " Make haste to come to me soon ; for Demas 
having loved the present world has forsaken me, and is gone 
into Thessalonica, Crescens into Galatia, and Titus into Dal- 
matia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with 

♦ Acts, chaps, ix. xxii. xxiv. t Acts, chaps, x. xi. 

6* 



54 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM, 

you, for he is ^ery useful to me in the ministry. But Tychycus 
I have sent to Ephesus. The cloak which I left at Troas with 
Carpus bring with you, and the books, but especially the 
parchments/^^ 

The Apostles, acting under the high authority and commission 
of Jesus Christ, and inspired with all divine and supernatural 
knowledge, exhibited in doctrine, in precepts, ordinances, 
promises, threatenings, and development of things spiritual, 
celestial, eternal, are, in consequence of these endowments and 
authority, worthy of all respect and regard, even when writing 
upon the most common matters ; and these apparently uninter- 
esting things are, to the student of the Living Oracles, of great 
value and of indispensable importance in giving a full develop- 
ment of the religion of Christianity, in all its condescensions and 
adaptations to the most minute and common concerns and 
business of this life. 

2c?. God has spohen hy men, for men. The language of the 
Bible is, then, Jiuman language. It is, therefore, to be ex- 
amined by the same rules which are applicable to the language 
of any other book, and to be understood according to the true 
and proper meaning of the words, in their current acceptation, 
at the times and in the places in which they were originally 
written and translated. 

If we have a revelation from God in human language, the 
words of that volume must be intelligible by the common usage 
of language ; they must be precise and determinate in signifi- 
cation, and that signification must be philologically ascertained — 
that is, as the words and sentences of other books are ascer- 
tained by the use of the dictionary and grammar. Were it 
otherwise, and did men require a new dictionary and grammar 
to understand the Book of God, — then, without that divine dic- 
tionary and grammar, we could have no revelation from God ; 
for a revelation that needs to be revealed is no revelation at all. 

Again, if any special tniles are to be sought for the interpre- 
tation of the sacred writings, unless these rules have been given 
in the volume, as a part of the revelation, and are of divine 
authority ; — without such rules, the Book is sealed ; and I 
know of no greater abuse of language than to call a sealed book 
a revelation. 

* 2 Timothy, iv. 8-12. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 55 

But the fact that God has clothed his communications in 
human language, and that he has spoken by men, to men, in 
their own language, is decisive evidence that he is to be under- 
stood as one man conversing with another. Kighteousness, or 
what we sometimes call lionesty, requires this ; for unless he 
first made a special stipulation when he began to speak, his 
words were, in all candour, to be taken at the current value ; for 
he that would contract with a man for any thing, stipulating his 
contract in the currency of the country, without any explanation, 
and should afterwards intimate that a dollar with him meant 
only three francs, would be regarded as a dishonest and unjust 
man. And shall we impute to the God of truth and justice 
what would blast the reputation of a fellow-citizen at the tri- 
bunal of political justice and public opinion ! 

As, then, there is no divine dictionary, grammar, or special 
rules of interpretation of the Bible, then that Book, to be under- 
stood, must be submitted to the common dictionary, grammar, 
and rules of the language in which it was written ; and as a 
living language is constantly fluctuating, the true and proper 
meaning of the words and sentences of the Bible must be 
learned from the acceptation of those words and phrases in the 
times and countries in which it was written. In all this there 
is nothing special ; for Diodorus, Herodotus, Josephus, Philo, 
Tacitus, Sallust, &c., and all the writers of all languages, ages, 
and nations, are translated and understood in the same manner. 

Enthusiasts and fanatics of all ages determine the meaning 
of words from that knowledge of things which they imagine 
themselves to possess, rather than from the words of the author : 
" they decide by what they suppose he ought to mean, rather 
than by what he says.^' 

To adopt any other course, or to apply any other rules, 
would necessarily divest the sacred writings of every attribute 
that belongs to the idea of revelation. It must never be for- 
gotten in perusing the Bible, that in the structure of sentences, 
in the figures of speech, in the arrangement and use of words, 
it differs not at all from other writings ; and must, therefore, be 
understood and interpreted as they are. 

How, then, is the meaning of its words to be acquired? 
Every word in the Scriptures has some ideas attached to it, 
which we call its sense or meaning. But this meaning is not 
natural, but conventional. It is agreement, usage, or custom, 



66 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

that has constituted a connexion between words and the ideas 
represented by them ; and this connexion between words and 
ideas, has become necessary by usage. 

How this originated is not the question before us ; the fact ia 
all that now interests us. We are not at liberty to affix what 
meaning we please to words, nor to use them arbitrarily ; inas- 
much as custom has affixed, by common consent, a meaning to 
them. 

The meaning of words is, therefore, now to be ascertained by 
testimony ; and that testimony we have collected in those books 
called dictionaries, which, by the consent of those who spoke 
that language faithfully, represent the meaning attached to those 
terms, or the ideas of which those words were the signs. "The 
fact,'' says Professor Stuart, " that usage has attached any par- 
ticular meaning to a word, like any other historical fact, is to be 
proved by adequate testimony. That testimony may be drawn 
from books in which the word is employed, or from daily use in 
conversation. But the fact of a particular meaning being 
attached to a word when once established, can no more be 
changed or denied than any historical event whatever. Of 
course, an arbitrary sense can never with propriety be sub- 
stituted for a real one. All men, in their daily conversation and 
writings, attach hut one sense to a word at the same time and in the 
same passage, unless they design to speak in enigmas. Of 
course, it would be in opposition to the universal custom of lan- 
guage, if more than one meaning should be attached to any 
word in Scripture, in such a case'' — that is, in the same passage, 
and at the same time. 

But, although a word has but one meaning at the same time 
and in the same passage, it may, at another time and in another 
passage, have a different meaning ; for many words have, by 
common consent, more meanings than one. This is what has 
caused so much ambiguity in language, and so much difficulty 
in ascertaining the meaning of some sentences and passages in 
all authors, and in the sacred writings. 

Every word, indeed, had but one meaning at first ; but to pre- 
vent the multiplication of words to an indefinite extent, and to 
obviate the difficulties that would thence arise in the acquisition 
of the knowledge of a language, words, in process of time, were 
used to represent different meanings. A question then arises, 
How shall we always ascertain the meaning of any particular wordf 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 57 

If it have but one meaning, testimony or the dictionary decides 
it at once ; but if it have more meanings, then the proximate 
words used in construction with it, usually called the context, 
together with the design of the speaker or writer, must decide 
its meaning. Usage and the context will generally decide. If 
these fail, the design of the speaker and parallel passages must 
be summoned. These are the aids which the canons of interpre- 
tation authorize in such cases. 

That there is, generally, perfect certainty in the proper in- 
terpretation of a word — ^thatis, in ascertaining or communicating 
its meaning, (for this is what is properly called the act of in- 
terpretation,) is felt and acknowledged on all hands. But the 
foundation, or reason of this certainty, is a matter which should 
be evident to all. 

Now, unless we are compelled by necessity, arising from the 
laws of language, to any particular meaning, there can be no 
certainty. Therefore, this compulsion is the very cause of cer- 
tainty. Philological necessity, or that necessity which the 
common usage of a word, the context, the design of the writer create, 
in giving a particular meaning to a word in a sentence, is the 
ground of that complete certainty, which, whether he can or 
cannot, explain, every one feels in the meaning of the language. 
And, as a very eminent critic has said, " If any one should deny 
that the above precepts lead to certainty, when strictly observed, 
he would deny the possibility of finding the meaning of lan- 
guage with certainty .'' These remarks would be sufficient to 
guide us in acquiring the meaning of words, if they had any 
one class of meanings only. But there is the literal and the tropi- 
cal or figurative meaning of words, which must be distinguished 
before we can feel ourselves competent to decide, with perfect 
certainty, the true and proper meaning of any composition. 

And, first, of the literal meaning of words. As has been ob- 
served, every word originally had but one meaning ; and this, 
of course, which was first, was the natural, or the literal mean- 
ing. Some of our most approved philologists and grammarians 
define the literal sense of the words to be, " The sense which is 
80 connected with them, that it is the first in order, and is spon- 
taneously presented to the mind, as soon as the sound of the 
word is heard." " The literal sense does not differ," says the 
celebrated Ernesti, " among the older and valuable writers, 
from the sense of the letter J' But better defined by Professor 



58 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Stuart, of Andover : — " The literal sense is the same as the 
primitive or original sense ; or, at least, it is equivalent to that 
sense which has usurped the place of the original one ; for ex- 
ample, the original sense of the word tragedy has long ceased, to 
he current; and the literal sense of this. word, now, is that 
which has taken the place of the original one/' Popular writers, 
in speaking of the sense of words, are wont to substitute gram- 
matical for literal, as equivalent; because literal, in its Latin 
extraction, and grammatical, in its Greek extraction, exactly re- 
present the same thing. But in a shade differing from these 
they use the word historical in reference to the interpretation of 
the Scriptures. " Since,'' says T. H. Home, in his Introduction, 
** it is not sufficient to know grammatically the different expres- 
sions employed by writers to interpret ancient works, so it ia 
necessary that we add historical interpretation to our gram- 
matical or literal knowledge. By historical interpretations, we 
are to understand that we give to the words of the sacred author 
the sense which they bore in the age when he lived, and which 
is agreeable to the degree of knowledge which he possessed, 
as well as conformable to the religion professed by him, and to 
the sacred and civil rights or customs that obtained when he 
flourished." 

When, however, we speak of the literal or grammatical sense 
of a word, we mean no more than its primitive meaning. And 
when we speak of the historical meaning of a word, we mean its 
meaning at any given time. The figurative meaning of words 
belongs to another chapter. 

In no book in the world is the literal sense of words the only 
sense; and still less in the Bible. But no book in the world, 
either among the ancients or the moderns, has been interpreted, 
quoted, and applied so licentiously as the Bible. Learned and 
unlearned have quoted and applied its words, as if its authors 
were outlaws and rebels in the commonwealth of letters. Some of 
the ancient Jews said that every letter in a word in the Old Testa- 
ment had a special meaning, and the very opening of the mouth 
to pronounce them was significant of something sacred. The 
rabbinic maxim used to be, and perhaps still is, " On every point 
of the Scriptures hang suspended mountains of sense." The 
Talmud says, " God so gave the law to Moses, that a thing can 
be shown to be clean and unclean forty-nine different ways." 
Little more than a century ago, Cocceius of Leyden, maintained 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 59 

that " all the possible meanings of a word are to be united.'' 
He raised a considerable party upon this principle. 

But an opposite extreme, and quite as dangerous, into which 
some have run, is, that " some passages of the Scriptures have 
no literal meaning at all.'' If by this it were understood that 
some passages have only a tropical or figurative meaning, it might 
be admitted without detriment to our knowledge of the will of 
Heaven ; but as it is understood by many, a license is taken to 
allegorize, not only the historical part of both Testaments, but 
also the miracles of Moses, of Christ, and of the Apostles — the 
paradisiacal state, the flood, and even the precepts and promises 
of the gospel institution ; so that the whole revelation of God is 
thrown into the laboratory of every man's imaginaticJn, and the 
key of knowledge for ever taken from the people. That the 
words of the sacred writings are taken both literally and 
figuratively, as the words of all other books, is now almost uni- 
versally conceded ; and that the true sense of the words is the 
true doctrine of the Bible, is daily gaining ground amongst the 
most learned and skilful interpreters: in one word, that th6 
Bible is not to be interpreted arbitrarily, is the most valuable 
discovery or concession of this generation. This, indeed, was 
confessed by our most distinguished reformers. Melancthon 
said, " The Scripture cannot be understood theologically until it 
is understood grammatically J' And Luther affirmed that a 
certain knowledge of Scripture depends only upon a knowledge 
of its words. 

3c?. The various divisions and subdivisions of the sacred 
Scriptures into chapters^ verses, and members of sentences, are 
of human authority, and to be regarded as such. Anciently all 
the books of the sacred Scriptures were written in one continuous 
manner — without a break, a chapter, or a verse. The division, 
into chapters that now universally obtains in Europe, derived 
its origin from Cardinal Cairo, who lived in the twelfth century. 
The subdivision into verses is of no older date than the middle 
of the sixteenth century, and was the invention of Kobert 
Stevens. Whatever advantages these divisions may have been 
in the way of facilitating references, they have so dislocated and 
broken to pieces the connexion, as not only to have given to the 
Scriptures the appearance of a book of proverbs, but have thrown 
great difficulties in the way of any easy intelligence of them. 
The punctuation, too, being necessarily dependent on these 



60 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

divisions, is far from accurate ; and, taken altogether, it affords 
a demonstration that there is no more divinity in the chapters, 
Terses, commas, semicolons, colons, and periods of the inspired 
writings, than there is in the paper on which they are inscribed, 
or in the ink by which they are depicted to our view. 

From all of which facts, the following rule is of essential im- 
portance; — 

In reading the historical and epistolary parts of the sacred 
writings, begin at the beginning, and follow the writer in the 
train of his own thoughts and reasonings to the end of the 
subject on which he writes, irrespective of chapters and verses. 
Indeed, even capital letters, punctuation — ^whether commas, 
Bemicolons, colons, periods, paragraphs, interrogative points, 
notes of admiration, parenthesis, dashes — must be regarded as 
human comments, and to be deliberately considered and weighed 
as but the opinions of men. 

This rule must be observed in all cases when we read for 
the sake of understanding any of the sacred books or letters. 

4iTi, It must always be remembered by him who would be a 
scribe, well instructed in the kingdom of heaven, that the whole 
Bible comprehends three distinct dispensations of religion, or 
three different administrations of mercy to the human race. 
These are the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian ages of the 
world. 

There are three high-priesthoods, viz. that of Melchizedek, 
that of Aaron, and that of Jesus the Messiah; and under each 
of these there will be found a different economy of things. A 
knowledge of the leading peculiarities of each is essential to an 
accurate knowledge of any one of them and the right interpre- 
tation of the Bible. 

It is a standing maxim in religion, that the priesthood being 
changed, there is of necessity a change of the law pertaining to 
acceptable worship. 

After the close of one dispensation and the commencement of 
a new one, no man could be accepted in his approaches to God 
by the preceding economy. Moses, nor Aaron, nor the people 
of the Jews, after they departed from Sinai, dare approach God 
by sacrifice — as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were wont to do. 

The sovereignty and wisdom of God are most conspicuous in 
these arrangements. But it is our present duty only to say, 
that before we can feel any confidence in our interpretations of 
any law, commandment, or institution of religion, a previous 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 61^ 

question must always be decided — ^viz. To wTmt dispensation did 
it belong ? 

5th. "We shall now conclude this summary view of the prin- 
ciples of interpretation, by stating in order seven general rules 
of interpretation of primary importance, deduced from the pre- 
ceding reflections : — 

Rule I. On opening any book in the Sacred Scriptures, con- 
sider first the historical circumstances of the book. These are 
the order, the title, the author, the date, the place, and the occa- 
sion of it. 

II. In examining the contents of any book, as respects pre- 
cepts, promises, exhortations, &c., observe who it is that speaks, 
and under what dispensation he officiates. Is he a Patriarch, a 
Jew, or a Christian ? Consider also the persons addressed — 
their prejudices, characters, and religious relations. Are they 
Jews or Christians — believers or unbelievers — approved or dis- 
approved ? This rule is essential to the proper application of 
every command, promise, threatening, admonition, or exhorta- 
tion, in the Old Testament or New. 

III. To understand the meaning of what is commanded, pro- 
mised, taught, &c., the same philological principles, deduced 
from the nature of language, or the same laws of interpretation 
which are applied to the language of other books, are to be ap- 
plied to the language of the Bible. 

IV. Common usage, which can only be ascertained by testi- 
mony, must always decide the meaning of any word which has 
but one signification ; but when words have, according to testi- 
mony — (i. e. the Dictionary) — more meanings than one, whether 
literal or figurative, the scope, the context, or parallel passages 
must decide the meaning ; for if common usage, the design of 
the writer, the context, and parallel passages fail, there can be 
no certainty in the interpretation of language. 

V. In all tropical language, ascertain the point of resem- 
blance, and judge of the nature of the trope, and its kind, from 
the point of resemblance. 

VI. In the interpretation of symbols, types, allegories, and 
parables, this rule is supreme. Ascertain the point to be illus- 
trated; for comparison is never to be extended beyond that 
point— to all the attributes, qualities, or circumstances of the 
symbol, type, allegory, or parable. 

VII. For the salutary and sanctifying intelligence of the ora- 
cles of God, the following rule is indispensable : — We must come 
within the understanding distance. 

There is a distance which is properly called the speaking dis- 
iancef or the hearing distance, beyond which the voice reaches 



^62 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

not, and the ear hears not. To hear another, we must come 
within that circle which the voice audibly fills. 

Now we may with propriety say, that as it respects God, there 
is an understanding distance. All beyond that distance cannot 
understand God ; all within it can easily understand him in all 
matters of piety and morality. God himself is the centre of 
that circle, and humility is its circumference. 

The wisdom of God is as evident in adapting the light of the 
Sun of Righteousness to our spiritual vision, as in adjusting the 
light of day to our eyes. The light reaches us without an effort 
of our own ; but we must open our eyes ; and if our eyes be 
sound, we enjoy the natural light of heaven. There is a sound 
eye in reference to spiritual, as well as in reference to material 
light. Now, while the philological principles and rules of inter- 
pretation enable many men to be skilful in biblical criticism, and 
in the interpretation of words and sentences, who neither per- 
ceive nor admire the tilings represented by those words, the 
sound eye contemplates the things themselves, and is ravished 
with the spiritual and divine scenes which the Bible unfolds. 

The moral soundness of vision consists in having the eyes of 
the understanding fixed solely on God himself, his approbation, 
and complacent affection for us. It is sometimes called a single 
eye, because it looks for one thing supremely. Every one, then, 
who opens the Book of God with one aim, with one ardent de- 
sire, intent only to know the will of God — to such a person, the 
knowledge of God is easy ; for the Bible is framed to illuminate 
such, and only such, with the salutary knowledge of things 
spiritual and divine. 

Humility of mind, or what is in effect the same, contempt for 
all earth-born pre-eminence, prepares the mind for the reception 
of this light, or, what is virtually the same, opens the ears to 
hear the voice of God. Amidst the din of all the arguments of 
the flesh, the world, and Satan, a person is so deaf that he can- 
not hear the still small voice of God's philanthropy. But re- 
ceding from pride, covetousness, and false ambition — from the 
love of the world — and coming within that circle, the circum- 
ference of which is unfeigned humility, and the centre of which 
is God himself, — the voice of God is distinctly heard and clearly 
understood. All within this circle are taught by God — all with- 
out it are under the influence of the wicked one. "God resist- 
eth the proud, but he giveth grace to the humble.'^ 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 63 

He, then, that would interpret the oracles of God to the salvar 
tion of his soul, must approach this volume with the humility 
and docility of a child, and meditate upon it day and night. 
Like Mary, he must sit at the Master's feet, and listen to the 
words which fall from his lips. To such an one there is an 
assurance of understanding, a certainty of knowledge, to which 
the man of letters alone never attained, and which the mere 
critic never felt. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Book of God is addressed to the human understanding. 
It assumes that man, though fallen and depraved, is yet an in- 
telligent being — that he has certain faculties or powers of ascer- 
taining truth, of perceiving and receiving evidence. It does 
not, indeed, inform him that he has the faculty of seeing, hear- 
ing, speaking, or believing. It does not explain to him that the 
possession of a faculty or power to do any thing, makes it his 
duty to employ that faculty or power in any way that his Cre- 
ator may require. But it addresses him as though these were 
matters perfectly understood and agreed upon between his Creator 
and himself. 

Some, in their speculative philosophy, have called these things 
in question, and have created doubts where none ever before 
existed. Hence we sometimes find men doubting whether there 
be such a faculty as faith amongst the mental faculties or powers 
of man. Philologists, indeed, say, that the term faculty indi- 
cates power or ability to do any thing ; and Christian philoso- 
phers say, that man has just as much power to believe testi- 
mony as he has to Reason, to hear, or to speak. If, then, any 
confidence can be due to such authorities, we may say that man, 
as a human being, has the faculty of speaking, hearing, reason- 
ing, and believing — as naturally as he has the faculty of seeing, 
tasting, or feeling. "We may advance one step farther, and say, 
that speaking and hearing are both useless endowments — that 
they are faculties of no value, if we have not the faculty of 



64 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISING. 

believing what is spoken, or of ascertaining the truth of what is 
heard. Indeed, all sound, discriminating thinkers must regard 
the faculties of speaking, hearing, and believing, as necessarily 
and essentially related to one another ; so that any one of them 
implies the other two. Why should man have the faculty of 
speech, if his neighbour had not the faculty of hearing ? And 
why should he have the faculty of hearing, and reasoning upon 
what is heard, if he have not the faculty of believing what is 
true ? Light, then, does not more obviously exist for the eye, 
and music for the ear, than speech for hearing, and hearing for 
faith. Well did Paul, therefore, reason when he said, " Faith 
comes by hearing, and hearing, from the (speech or) word of 
God." We, therefore, conclude that God never would have 
spoken to man, if man could not hear him ; and that man never 
'would have heard his word if he could not believe what God 
said to him. The fact, then, that God has given to the world a 
revelation, is, with me, a demonstration that man has the power 
to believe it — provided only, his heart and attention are devoted 
to it. It is an intelligible, veritable, and credible document, 
worthy of God as its author, and of man as its object. 

Both oral and written testimony are addressed to our reason ; 
for, although the written testimony is designed for the eye, and 
the oral testimony for the ear, both are addressed to our reason — 
to our power of discriminating the characters of truth from those 
of falsehood. There is in this also a sort of tacit agreement or 
understanding between the parties — as much as there is between 
two persons speaking the same vernacular, in the use and 
meaning of the words and phrases, of the tones and gestures 
employed in their intercommunications with one another. 

Revelation, though originally the form of oral testimony, is 
now altogether in the form of a written record. It is in this 
form, indeed, still more circumstantially addressed to our rea- 
son and our faith. The meaning of its language and the truth 
of its developments are alike to be ascertained by the faculties 
to which they are conjointly addressed. It always proceeds 
upon the assumption that, unless it is understood, it cannot be 
believed ; and that, unless it is believed, it can exert no salutary 
influence upon our hearts or our lives. 

To admit the testimony to be true is, in the sacred style, equi- 
valent to believing it ; for he that believeth the testimony of God 
has simply " set to his seal that God is true." Faith, indeed, is 



.ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 65 

always but the conviction of the truth of testimony, whether 
that testimony be human or divine. To be convinced that any 
testimony or report is true, is to believe it ; to be convinced that 
it is not true, is to disbelieve it ; not to be able to decide, is to 
doubt. Hence, there are but three distinct states of mind, as 
respects testimony. We believe, disbelieve, or doubt it. 

Of all the endowments vouchsafed to man, that of faith is su- 
perlatively excellent. To this faculty he owes all that knowledge 
that ennobles and exalts him in the scale of being. The range 
and acquisitions of his five senses are as nothing, compared with 
the domains of faith. The area of faith is wider than the earth, 
broader than the sea, extending. through all time, and launching 
into an indefinite eternity, past and future. By faith, vre com- 
mune with all the living, and with all the dead whose deeds of 
renown have been inscribed upon the rolls of time. Ages past 
and gone are ever present with us — empires, that have long since 
fallen, still stand before us — cities, palaces, and temples, that, 
ages since, have mouldered down to dust, arise from their ruins 
and display to us the science and skill, the genius and taste, the 
pride and superstition of their founders and architects. By faith 
in human testimony, the experience of ages is brought home to 
us and made subordinate to our wants and our wishes. By it 
we may be said to have lived before we were born — to have 
communed with the men of all ages and nations — to have been 
contemporaries with all the generations of men. 

By faith in divine testimony, we know how the universe was 
made — how worlds began to be — how space sprang from nothing, 
and how it has been possessed with its unnumbered tenantry of 
worlds. By it we see the first man springing out of the dust at 
the bidding of his Almighty Maker, blushing into life in his 
immediate presence, and receiving a holy spirit from the life- 
inspiring voice of his Father and his God. By it we see him 
wrapped in a mystic sleep, and the hand of God dislocating a 
rib near his heart, which he moulds, after the image of love, 
into incarnate beauty, and presents to Adam as a companion 
meet for such a man as he. 

Faith, also, illuminated by the same bright Sun of Eternity, 
gifts man with the prospective visions of times and ages yet 
unborn. It presents, to the enraptured vision of the saint, 
Adam and Eve, with all their redeemed progeny, ransomed from 
the grave; emerging, phoenix-like, from the ashes of an old 

6* 



66 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

world ; or, Eve-like, rising in immortal beauty and loveliness 
from the opened side of the second Adam, making their sublime 
entry, amidst the acclamations of the celestial choristers, into 
new heavens and a new earth, especially prepared for ^hem. 
Truly, then, may we not say with Paul, that " faith is the confi- 
dent expectation of things hoped for, and the conviction (or evi- 
dence) of things not seen V 

But the sublime nature, ineflPable utility, and importance of 
faith are not to be learned from a survey of its widespread and 
long-enduring dominion over time, space, and eternity; but 
from a strict attention to the place it now occupies in the world 
and in the church of God, in the present employments, charac- 
ter, and destiny of man. Be it observed, then, that all the 
faculties of man have a present specific use and importance in 
the full development of himself, in the formation of such a 
character as he should rationally desire to possess to all eter- 
nity, and in qualifying him to fill his own space in the world, in 
the performance of those functions and the discharge of those 
duties which will avail to the interests and happiness of the 
world. 

Every faculty of man has its proper object and its proper use. 
Has he the faculty of vision ? There are objects to be seen, and 
advantages to be gained from seeing them. Has he the faculty 
of hearing ? There are the harmonies and the melodies of na- 
ture and of the human voice to be heard and to be enjoyed. 
Has he the faculty of reasoning? There are objects to be com- 
pared, and conclusions of practical utility to be deduced from 
them. Has he the faculty of believing ? There is the testimony 
of men, and there is the testimony of God, to be believed and 
appropriated. Now, as this is the noblest faculty which man 
possesses, conversant with things past, present, and future, proxi- 
mate and remote, God has ordained that he shall walk by faith, 
physically, intellectually, and morally. Hence man is obliged 
to walk through his whole life more by faith than by his five 
senses, his own observations, or his own experience — probably 
more than by these all combined. This being a very funda- 
mental fact, we shall be at some pains to develope it. 

The infant man enters life more helpless than any animal with 
whose history we are acquainted. He has not instinct sufficient 
for the first effort essential to life, health, or comfort. He is as 
destitute of reason, observation, and experience, as of instinct, 



Antecedents op baptism. 67 

to guide him in the pursuit of what is essential to his animal 
existence. God has made him dependent upon the care, direc- 
tion, and counsel of his mother or his nurse, in the very first 
steps of life's pilgrimage. He must walk by faith in the arti- 
cles of food and medicine, and all physical safety. He cannot 
walk by reason, for as yet he has it not. He cannot walk by 
his own experience, for he has acquired none. He cannot walk 
by instinct, for that was not imparted to him. He is, therefore, 
under an insuperable necessity to walk by faith as respects food, 
medicine, poison, and all surrounding dangers from fire, flood, 
or tempest. If he believe not on the testimony of others that 
medicine will cure, that poison will kill, that fire will burn, and 
that water will drown, he must pay the penalty and sufier for 
his unbelief. More destitute of instinct and of defence than the 
* oyster or the lobster, he must not be left to his own guidance or 
guardianship. He must not be permitted to experiment with 
the serpent, the young lion, or with the poisons, animal and 
vegetable, with which the earth abounds. The law of nature is 
as imperious and universal as the law of the gospel. If the 
gospel says, " He that belie veth not shall be damned,^' — the law 
of man's natural existence says, * If he believe not his mother or 
his nurse, he must die' 

But it is not in the nursery only that the infant man is trained 
to walk by faith. He enters the primary school under the same 
imperious law. The primer is put into his hand. He opens it, 
and looks at the letters of the alphabet ; but neither knows their 
name nor their sound. He might look at them for a thousand 
years, and neither know the name nor the sound of the first 
letter. But, by faith in his teacher, he learns the names and 
the sounds of them all. By the same principle, he learns the 
art and mystery of reading his own mother's language. Does 
he desire the science of numbers, or that of magnitudes ? He 
is equally obliged to walk by faith either in the written testi- 
mony or in the verbal explanation of a teacher. Does he desire 
to learn ancient or foreign language — ^to distil sweetness and 
pleasure from Greek and Roman springs? Then must he re- 
pose implicit faith in his lexicographer, and believe him in every 
definition of verb and noun. 

Having passed through the nursery training and discipline by 
faith, having also advanced through the primary and high-school 
education under the guidance and supremacy of the same uni- 



68 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

versal law, does he desire to take his place as a free agent on 
the active theatre of life ? Does he become a merchant, a me- 
chanic, an agriculturist ? He is still to walk by the same rule, 
and to be governed by the same stern necessity. Believe he 
must in those who have gone before him in every calling and 
department of life. He has to buy and sell, to barter and ex- 
change the products of his own labour, or the products of other 
men's labour, by faith in human testimony. In receiving a shil- 
ling, a guinea, an eagle, a bank-bill, a bill of exchange, a draft, 
he must act by faith as to their genuineness, their value at a 
given time and at a given place. All of which depends upon 
the testimony of others. In paying or in receiving payments, he 
acts by the same principle and obeys the same law. Even the 
weights and measures by which he buys and sells are to him 
almost universally matters of testimony and faith. What need» 
have we of farther witness ? In natural and social life, in the 
nursery and at school, in the active business and pursuits of 
life, men are compelled in all cases first, and in most cases 
always, to walk by faith. Their own senses, observation, and 
experience, in process of time, guide them in co-operation with 
testimony and faith ; but these first lead the way and continue 
our chief guides through all the great concerns of life ! 

"Why, then, should it be otherwise as respects things unseen, 
spiritual and eternal? Here, indeed, we must "walk by faith, 
and not by sight.'' But the skeptic and the infidel have no rea- 
son to reject the gospel, or deny the Bible, because it imparts 
its blessings only through faith. Nature, society, and the gos- 
pel bear equally impressed upon them the characteristic marks 
of the same great original. If man, in things temporal and 
with respect to his present life, walks by faith, why should it be 
thought incredible that God would have him to walk by faith in 
things spiritual and with respect to an eternal life ? The condi- 
tions of spiritual and eternal life are, in this all-important fea- 
ture, the same. He that believeth not must perish, is equally 
true as respects both. 

The gospel assumes that which Christian and infidel must 
equally admit ; — that mankind are accustomed to walk by faith 
in all the important concerns of this life. It, therefore, very 
rationally addresses itself to this faculty in addressing man. It 
proposes to him no new principle. It speaks in harmony with 
the presiding genius of his own nature. It submits to him clear 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 69 

and ample testimony in proof of all that it demands and of all 
that it promises. Its language is, — "If we receive the testi- 
mony of men, the testimony of God is greater.^' If men^s words 
may be relied on, how much more the word of God ! 

Great virtue and power are attached to the faith of the gos- 
pel. Some, however, ascribe this efficacy rather to the manner 
of believing it, than to the truth which is believed. There are 
some very popular mistakes upon this subject. Some imagine 
that there are several ways of believing testimony, or of assent- 
ing to evidence. This is, however, a very great error, and of 
injurious tendency. There is but one way of believing any testi- 
mony, human or divine ; and that is, to admit it to be true. He 
that admits any testimony to be true, believes it ; and no be- 
liever can do more than admit the truth of a witness. There 
are, indeed, or may be, different degrees of clearness and cer- 
tainty in the evidence adduced in any case ; and hence there are, 
or may be, as many different degrees of conviction or assurance 
of the truth of it. Hence faith is strong or weak, in the ratio 
of the clearness and force of the testimony adduced. But the 
clearness and force of testimony is not necessarily innate in thcf 
words or manner of the witness ; but much depends upon the 
discrimination and clearness of perception, as well as upon the 
candour of the believer, in appreciating the clearness and force 
of the testimony adduced. It is, therefore, essential to strong 
and vigorous belief in any thing, that the testimony be clear 
and forcible in itself, and that it be clearly perceived and fully 
comprehended by the believer. It follows, then, that there are 
not several ways of believing ; but that there may be different 
degrees of evidence, and that one person may more clearly and 
satisfactorily believe than another. The head, the heart, the 
will, the conscience are all simultaneously exercised in the act 
of believing in order to justification. The head alone believes 
nothing. Nor does the heart, the will, the conscience alone be- 
lieve any thing. The understanding simply discerns truth, the 
conscience recognises authority, the heart feels love, the will 
yields to requisition. The gospel engages, interests, allures, 
captivates the enlightened sinner. So that, "with his heart,'' 
his whole soul, "he believes to righteousness, and with his mouth 
he confesses to salvation." 

Some superficial thinkers have spoken and written much upon 
different kinds of faith. They have "historical" and "saving 



70 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

faith/^ the "faith of miracles," and the "faith of devils/^ the 
"faith direct and reflex/' "temporary and enduring faith," &o. 
&c. These are conceits of the old metaphysical theologians, 
and have done a world of mischief. By placing historical and 
saving or divine faith in contrast, and in giving all value to 
saving and none to historical belief, they have bevrildered them- 
selves and their followers : — 

" Faith was bewildered mucli by men who meant 
To make it clear, so simple in itself, 
A thought so rudimental and so plain. 
That none by comment could it plainer make. 
All faith was one. In object, not in kind. 
The difference lay. The faith that saved a soul. 
And that which in the common truth believed, 
In essence, were the same. Hear, then, what faith. 
True, Christian faith, which brought salvation, was: — 
Belief in all that God revealed to men ; 
Observe, in all that God revealed to men. 
In all he promised, threatened, commanded, said, 
Without exception, and without a doubt." 

There is no faith worth any thing that is not historical ; for all 
our religion is founded upon history. What would any Jew or 
Christian have believed concerning Moses or Jesus, but for the 
history of those persons ? Is there any man under the broad 
heavens who believes in Moses or in Jesus, who has not first heard 
of the Lawgiver and the Saviour from history, oral or written ? 
Not one. But there are those who believe in Moses and in Jesus 
on mere human tradition, without any correct knowledge of the 
history ; and there are those who believe on Moses and on Jesus 
on the proper evidence ; but they have such views of Moses and 
of Jesus as render their faith of no value. They hold opinions 
and views of these persons that make them mere shadows or 
ideal personages. Our Saviour told certain Jews that believed 
in Moses, as they alleged, that had they " believed Moses, they 
would have believed him ;" hut not having believed the writings 
of Moses, they could not believe his words. 

Multitudes believe something concerning Jesus the Messiah 
on mere national or human authority and prescription, who 
have not one distinct real conception or apprehension of him ; 
and, consequently, " he will not commit himself to them." 
Many in Jerusalem, while he was there, like Nicodemus when 
first he visited him, believed in him ; to whom, we are told, he 
would not commit himself, because he knew what mistakes and 



.ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 71 

misconceptions they entertained concerning him. The whole 
history must be clearly understood and cordially received in its 
true sense and on its divine evidence, as demonstrated by the 
Holy Spirit, before any one can, in strict propriety, be said to 
believe it. All who thus believe it, will find that it is both the 
wisdom and power of God to salvation. 

But the power and efficacy of faith depend not so much upon 
the act or manner of believing, nor upon the certainty of the 
evidence, nor even upon our assurance of its truth, as upon the 
nature and value of the thing that is believed. The power of 
FAITH IS IN THE TRUTH BELIEVED. The powcr of faith is in 
the power of truth. It is not eating that sustains or destroys 
human life. It is what is eaten. Some eat and live — others eat 
and die. Some believe and are saved — others believe and are 
damned. Both characters truly and sincerely believe. But the 
former believe the truth and are saved — the latter believe a lie 
and are damned. So true it is, that it is not the manner of be- 
lieving that saves or destroys, nor the sincerity of believing ; 
but the meaning or nature of that which is believed. " God,'^ 
says Paul, sends to some " a strong delusion ;'' or allows them 
to receive a strong delusion, so "that they may 6eZzet?6 a lie^' 
and be condemned ; while to others he sends the truth with 
power, that they may believe and be saved. Some believe fatally, 
yet sincerely — indeed all, who believe an error or a falsehood. 
Some, indeed, prefer to believe a pleasing and agreeable false- 
hood rather than an unsavoury or disagreeable truth. Hence 
some really love darkness, while others love the light and the 
truth. 

It is highly important that this great proposition be somewhat 
elaborated and demonstrated; — ^that salvation is not in the act 
of believing y but in the object or proposition that is believed. It is 
the object of faith, and not faith itself, that has the power to 
save. If we examine our physical, intellectual, and moral con- 
stitution, in all their organs, faculties, and capacities, one by 
one, we shall find that it is neither the possession of them nor 
the employment of them that afibrds us health, safety or happi- 
ness ; but the objects on which they are employed. It is not 
the eye, nor the act of seeing, that afibrds us pleasure or pain. 
It is the thing seen. It is not the ear, nor the act of hearing, 
but the thing heard, that soothes or irritates. So of the organs 
of tasting, smelling, feeling. The pleasures of sense, derived 



72 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

from tastes, odours, and contacts, are not in the senses or organs 
themselves, nor in the operations of the organs, but in the 
objects on which these senses act. 

The same universal law obtains in the intellectual and moral 
departments of our nature. It is not the faculty of perception, 
reflection, comparison, or memory — or the employment of these 
faculties ; but the things perceived, reflected upon, compared, 
imagined, or remembered, that afford us either pleasure or pain. 
So of all the affections and passions. We love and we hate, we 
admire and adore with pleasure or pain, according to the ob- 
jects. And were we to adopt the new philosophy of fifty organs 
in the human head, and of as many faculties, called acquisitive- 
ness, cautiousness, &c. &c., we should find the same law without 
a single exception. If, then, the faculty of faith, or the opera- 
tion of faith, has any power to bless, to animate with hope, to 
justify, to sanctify, to regenerate, or to save, that power is 
neither in the faculty, in the act, nor operation, but in the ob- 
ject on which it terminates. 

Still, the objects subjected to the faculties of man, — ^whether 
sensitive, intellectual, or moral, — can afford him neither pleasure 
nor pain, unless apprehended and appropriated by the faculties 
to which they severally belong. The richest, most variegated, 
and beautiful landscape in nature — the most majestic and 
sublime operations of the divine hand in heaven or earth, afford 
no pleasure to the eye unless viewed and contemplated by that 
organ. The most rapturous harmonies and melodies of nature 
or of art afford no pleasure unless listened to and heard. In 
vain the aromatic shrubs and fragrant flowers of the garden 
pour their delicious odours into the bosom of gentle zephyrs, to be 
wafted to our nostrils, if we inhale them not. So the rich pro- 
visions of Almighty love, displayed to man in a thousand ways, 
but consummated beyond our powers of thought and utterance in 
the gift of eternal youth, beauty, and loveliness to fallen man, 
through the incarnation of the everlasting "Word — the sufferings 
unto death of his only begotten and infinitely beloved Son — and 
through the sanctification of his Holy Spirit, — unless appre- 
hended and appropriated by faith, can neither fill the soul with 
heavenly peace, and joy, and love, nor give to man the victory 
over death, the grave, and Satan. Hence, by a figure of speech 
which puts the instrument for the agent, salvation is ascribed to 
faith, while it virtually belongs to the sacrifice and intercession 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 73 

of the Messiah. The gospel, then, as ministered now by the 
Holy Spirit, is " the power of God for salvation to every one 
that believes it." Faith, indeed, is but the hand that apprehends 
and appropriates Christ as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit 
Bent down from heaven. Salvation, then, is of faith, that it 
might be by grace. For as the hand that plucks the fruit is 
not the fruit, is not that which either creates or sustains life, 
but only that which ministers to its development and preserva- 
tion — so faith's sublime efficacy is not in itself, but in that 
which it receives and appropriates to the soul of man, in which 
alone is the spring and fountain of eternal life. 

Having now, as we hope, clearly ascertained the necessity, 
utility, and value of faith in the Christian institution, it is ex- 
pedient that we also ascertain, if possible, that great central 
proposition in the Christian system which gives to faith all its 
sovereignty over the heart, and soul, and life of man. It were 
of little value to the sick and dying could we convince them 
that all medicinal efficacy was in a certain specific remedy, and 
not in the act of receiving it into the system ; and yet withhold 
from them a revelation of that sovereign specific. 

There is, then, but one remedial system, for sin and sinners, 
in this universe. There never can be but one such. system 
under a government of perfect wisdom, of immaculate holiness, 
of inflexible justice, of inviolate truth, and of infinite mercy. 
That one only omnipotent remedy — though composed of many 
mysterious and sublime elements, displayed in the wonderful 
facts of Messiah's life, death, resurrection, and ascension into 
heaven — is nevertheless all concentrated in the form of one 
proposition, on the faith and intelligence of which is suspended 
instrumentally the salvation of any human being. All the 
truths of the Bible are but the envelope of this remedy — in- 
scribed, indeed, with directions for its use, and innumerable 
certificates in attestation of its life-restoring power. That 
proposition in word is, *' God is love'' — that proposition in fact 
is, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begot- 
ten Son" — [a sin-offering) — "that whosoever believeth in 

HIM MIGHT NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE." " The 

testimony of God," summed up by the last of the Apostles, is, 
" God has granted to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 
** He, then, that has the Son, has this life ; he that has not the 
Son of God, has not this life." But all this is again concen- 

,7 



74 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

trated in a Bingle proposition concerning the person, office, and 
mission of his Son — viz. " Jesus is the Messiah^ the Son of God J' 
This is the most fundamental proposition in the moral universe. 
It is the foundation of the system of redemption — the foundation 
of a Christian's hope in God — and the foundation of the Chris- 
tian church. Jesus himself so commended it, Matt. xvi. 16, 17. 
Paul also so commends it to our consideration, 1 Cor. iii. 11, 
saying, " Other foundation can no man lay than that v^hich is 
already laid^' — viz. that Jesus is the Christ,^ So God himself 
commended it by Isaiah, xxviii. 16: " Thus saith the Lord God, 
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation-stone, a tried stone, a 
precious corner-stone, a sure foundation : he that believeth shall 
not make haste'' — ** shall not be confounded world without 
end.'' So also the Holy Spirit attested it. Acts ii. 36. " Let 
all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that 
Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ." Thus the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit agree in one testimony 
concerning Jesus. This is the testimony of the Law in all its 
types — the testimony of all the Prophets in their predictions of 
the gospel kingdom— and it is the testimony of the Twelve 
Apostles. 

In this proposition, therefore, is the mysterious and sublime 
power of the gospel. It is the distinctive and peculiar object 
of the Christian's faith. There is no salvation in the belief of 
the call of Abraham, the mission of Moses, or the preaching of 
John the Harbinger, any more than in the translation of Enoch, 
the salvation of Noah from the flood, or of Lot from the over- 
throw of Sodom. There is no development of the Messiah in 
any of these facts or declarations. Many such facts, events, and 
declarations are but the envelope of the great truth of all divine 
revelation. The bread which sustains life is not in the ear nor 
in the chaff, but in the corn. Still it is true, that were there no 
ear and no chaff, there would be no wheat. We give them their 
proper importance ; but not an importance beyond their mean- 
ing and design. The power of the sword is not in the scabbard, 
nor in the handle, but in the blade. The power of saving faith 
is in the saving truth believed. Of course, no truth can have 
power over either the heart or the hope of man that is not un- 
derstood. The efficacy is in the sense, and not in the sound. 

* So it reads in the Greek of the received text. 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 75 

The sense of the great proposition is, therefore, that which is 
believed, and not the mere words which contain that sense. 
Indeed, the faith that saves the soul communes with the sense 
of words, and not with the words themselves. Millions profess- 
ing Christianity seem to think that there is a peculiar virtue in 
the mere enunciation of " the persons of the Trinity^' — a sort 
of magic charm or cabalistic power in so many words or letters 
peculiarly arranged. But the Great Teacher said, " It is eternal 
life to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
hast sent.^'^ And Isaiah said, " By the knowledge of him shall 
my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their ini- 
quities.'^t -^^^ Jesus said, " He that received the seed in good 
ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it,'^X 
Again he says, "If you continue in my word, you shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free.'^^ 

Reprobates are sometimes described as those who "hear,'^ but 
who do not understand the gospel. And they do not understand 
it because they will not ; for ears and understanding they have, 
but they will not, they do not, apply them. Still the truth be- 
lieved, understandingly believed, is that which instrumentally 
saves the soul. Hence preached the evangelical Isaiah, " In- 
cline your ear" — ".Hear," said the Lord, "and your soul shall 
live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the 
sure mercies of David." 

These things being so, according to the constitution of the 
human mind and of the universe, the great proposition must be 
understood before it can be believed in its sanctifying and saving 
efficacy. But that when so believed it possesses the power, is 
clearly and strongly affirmed by high authority. Thus speaks 
the Apostle John: — "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the 
Christ is born of God." Again, says the same Apostle : — " This 
is the victory that overcometh the world — viz : our faith. Who 
is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that 
Jesu^ is the Son of GodP'^ " Many other signs truly did Jesus 
in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in 
this book. But these are written that you might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, you 
may have life through his name."|| The importance and sa- 
lutary power of this faith need not, methinks, to be further 

♦ John xvii. 3. f Isa. liii. 11. % Matt. xiii. 23. § John viii.31. jj John xx. 30, 31. 



76 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

argued. The justified, and sanctified, and saved build their 
hopes upon it— Jesus builds his church upon it — God himself 
founds the remedial system upon it. He that believes it is be- 
gotten and born of God — he overcomes the world — and will, most 
certainly, be eaved and obtain through it eternal life ; for no 
man can believe in its true meaning, and not confide in it. 

Demons, indeed, believe and tremble. They cannot believe 
that Jesus died for them. Therefore, they can have no confi- 
dence in him. They cannot appropriate one of his promises. 
But sinful men can believe that to them is the word of this sal- 
vation sent, and they can confide in the Lord Jesus. Through 
their faith in the testimony of God, and their personal confidence 
in the promises of Christ, they can individually say, " Christ 
loved me, and gave himself for me.'^ This is to believe God, and 
to believe in him whom he has sent. This, indeed, is the efiect of 
all true faith ; for no one can be said to believe in Jesus that 
does not confide in him for his own personal salvation. 

It remains, then, that we develope the full meaning of this 
vital proposition as " the foundation of repentance from dead 
works,'^ and as the basis of all Christian piety and humanity. 
In doing this we shall, in our next chapter, attempt to develope 
that " REPENTANCE UNTO life" which God has granted to the 
nations as the fruit of their faith in the divinely authenticated 
proposition that " Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.^' 



CHAPTER V. 

REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE. 

" He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to grant repentance to Israel and re- 
mission of sins."— ^cte V. 31. 
" Then hath God also granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life."— ^cis xi. 18. 

In the Christian Institution faith and repentance are essen- 
tially and inseparably connected. As to the nature of that con- 
nection there has, indeed, been some debate amongst the learned 
theorists; but as to the fact itself, there is no controversy 
amongst intelligent Christians of any denomination. 

What that connection is, as well as the nature and importance 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 77 

of evangelical repentance, will best appear from an induction 
and examination of the more prominent portions of the Christian 
Scriptures which treat upon that subject. The book of God, in 
all matters of vital importance, is its own best interpreter. 
As, then, the import of the term repentance has sometimes been 
a matter of doubt with some sincere inquirers, we shall hastily 
glance at its history, as found in the apostolic writings. 

The English verb repent^ and the noun repentance, are, together, 
found no less than sixty-four times in the common New Testa- 
ment. Of the forty times we find the verb repent in the version 
commonly read by authority, we have two very difierent words 
representing it in the Greek original. It is generally more or 
less unfortunate to have two words of very different etymology 
uniformly translated by one and the same term. It sometimes 
creates considerable ambiguity as to the sense of the term or the 
passage in which it is found. There is, indeed, in this case a 
very fortunate circumstance, which throws much light upon 
the whole subject of repentance. It is thia: — One of these 
terms,"^ which, etymologically and in common usage, intimates 
mere regret or concern for something done, without respect to a 
change of the affections or of the conduct of an individual, is 
never found in connection with faith, or any of the gospel facts 
reported in the Christian records. In the case of Judas it is 
found, but in such a connection of things as clearly intimates its 
proper sense. In that case, all agree that it indicated neither 
change of heart nor change of life. Nor is it in all the Chris- 
tian Scriptures ever found in the imperative mood. God never 
commanded any person to repent in the style of Judas, of whom 
it is said, he repented and afterwards hung himself. 

Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, so uses this term 
as to indicate that he himself repented of a good action — and 
that there was a repentance to be repented of, and " a repent- 
ance not to be repented of.'' All this ambiguity is the fault of 
translators. The words used by the Apostle are different, and 
in all reason ought to have been translated by different words. 
Then all would have understood him on the subject of evangeli- 
cal repentance much better. Every one knows that a person 
may sometimes regret, or be sorry for, a good action ; especially 
when, on conferring a benefit on any one, that benefit is abused 

* Metamelomai. 
7* 



78i ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

to the injury of him that receives it. Paul, indeed, regretted 
that he had written a very good letter to the Corinthians, be- 
cause it had produced excessive grief and sorrow among them. 
But seeing that it had resulted in a " repentance to salvation,^' 
he ceased to regret that he had written it.* 

God himself is said " to repent'' and " not to repent ;" but as 
there is no change of his affections, no reformation in his repent- 
ance, the term used is not that connected with the gospel. " I 
have sworn," said he, " and will not repent.''! " Thou art an 
eternal priest." Does he not here mean that he will iiever re- 
gret nor recall this appointment ? 

While, then, we are sometimes bewildered by having these 
two words, so radically different in sense, translated by one and 
the same representative on every occasion, when the special 
import of one of them is understood, we may, perhaps, gain a 
more distinct view of the proper import of the other, or of that 
repentance which is to life and to salvation. It being already 
shown that one of these words does not indicate any change in 
the affections, any transformation of character, any real refor- 
mation of life, and is, therefore, never found in the imperative 
mood in the sacred Scriptures, and that the other term is ex- , 
clusively used in commanding and setting forth that change of 
heart and life connected with salvation, we have in the force 
and meaning of the word selected a very strong intimation of 
that which constitutes that repentance to life which is now the 
subject of our present inquiry. It is not, then, without good 
reason that we conclude from the history of this term, so far as 
already traced, that neither remorse nor regret for the past, 
neither sorrow for evils done, nor purposes of amendment of life, 
fill up the meaning or exhaust the force of the word selected by 
the Apostles. 

* 2 Cor. vi. 10. Metanoian eis soteerian. Metanoia, and not metameUmiai, is the word 
connected with salvation. How much better, then, to have given the contrast to the 
English reader which the Apostle gave to the Greek reader. In the new version 
the whole passage reads as follows : — " I now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, 
but that your sorrow produced reformation : for you were made to sorrow in a 
godly manner, that you might be injured by us in nothing. For godly sorrow 
produces a reformation to salvation, never to be repented of; but the sorrow of the 
world produces death." As descriptive of godly sorrow he adds : — " Behold, now, 
this very thing — your being made sorry with a godly sorrow — what carefulness it 
wrought in you ; yes, what clearing of yourselves ; yes, what indignation ; yes, 
what fear ; yes, what earnest desire ; yes, what zeal ; yes, what revenge." 

t Metamelomai, not metanoeoo. 



Antecedents op baptism. 79 

But in tracing inductively the history of a word chosen hy 
the Holy Spirit to reveal his will to us, which occurs not less 
than fifty-eight times in the New Institution, we may, certainly, 
arrive at a very clear comprehension of its meaning. A few 
specifications shall suffice for our present purpose. 

It is specially worthy of notice in this investigation that in 
the first and last communications of the Messiah we find an im- 
perative repent. His harbinger, also, introduced his personal 
advent with the command, " Repent, for the reign of heaven 
approaches.'' In the commencement of his own personal min- 
istry, his first discourse was, ** Repent, for the reign of heaven 
approaches." His twelve Apostles, under their first commission, 
we are informed by Mark, went abroad proclaiming repentance 
to the people. The same proclamation was made by the seventy 
evangelists sent to the lost sheep of thQ house of Israel. In- 
deed, the ministry of John is characterized as the proclamation 
of " the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."^ So 
that during the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus, and that 
of his harbinger, repentance was the burthen of every discourse 
to the people. 

The questions propounded to the preachers by the more con- 
scientious portions of their hearers, clearly intimate what was 
their understanding of the precept '^ repenV^ The question, 
^^What shall we dof* generally propounded by those who first 
heard them, intimates that personal reformation^ and not mere 
change of views or feelings, was implied in the precept itself. 
The profession of repentance without reformation or fruits 
worthy of it, they were clearly informed, would avail nothing. 
So evident it is that their contemporaries understood by the 
precept " repent" what we associate with the word " reform." 

Nor was it different under the last commission given to the 
twelve Apostles. It is true, the word repent is not found in the 
version of it by Matthew or Mark, but when expounded by the 
Apostles themselves, and when reported by Luke, it is evident 
that they understood the preaching of the gospel to be the 
preaching of repentance, with new arguments and motives. 
According to Luke, the Messiah, immediately before his ascen- 
sion, said that "repentance and remission of sins should be 
preached in his name amongst all nations, beginning at Jerusa- 
lem." So that with great propriety, the first precept given by 

*Marki.4. 



80 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

Peter in his opening speech on the memorable Pentecost, to his 
inquiring audience, was " repent and be baptized every one of 
you.^' . 

Not to multiply quotations, it may suffice to add, that Paul 
not only represented his whole ministry of the word as " the 
preaching of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ,^' but also assured the Athenians that, under the 
new constitution of grace as ministered by Jesus, " God com- 
mands all merij every where, to repent." Even Christians, when 
they grow cold or worldly in their profession, are, in the last 
epistles addressed by the Saviour, through his servant John, to 
the churches of Asia, commanded to repent and do their first 
works. Truly, then, we may say with Peter, that ** Jesus is 
exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to grant repentance to Israel 
and the remission of sins." 

It must, we think, appear obvious to all upon a little reflec- 
tion, that the proclamation of repentance is a proclamation of 
mercy — hence the connection between repentance and remission 
of sins. If God had not intended to forgive all men on repent- 
ance, to what purpose could he have commanded all men to 
repent ? Repentance was never preached to fallen angels or 
apostate spirits, because there could be offered to them no motive 
to repent. Mercy, then, is always preached when repentance 
is preached. Hence the necessity of faith as " the foundation 
of repentance from dead works." This single consideration — 
that the proclamation of repentance is a proclamation of mercy, 
and that mercy propounds motives in the gospel to induce to 
repentance, methinks ought to satisfy every reflecting mind that 
the connection between faith and repentance is that of cause and 
effect, or of means and end. Unless the motives are accredited, 
the arguments of mercy are impotent and unavailing. Nay, 
indeed, they are as though they were not. So true is it that 
** he that cometh to God" must not only " believe that he exists," 
but also *'that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek 
him." But how could any one believe that God is a rewarder 
of them that diligently seek him, unless God has so promised in 
the gospel. 

Repentance, indeed, antecedent to faith, to me appears im- 
possible ; for how could any one repent of sin against God, if 
he did not believe that he had sinned against God ! And how 
could the mercy of God afford any encouragement to repentance 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 81 

unless that mercy is reported to us and believed ! So, then, 
repentance comes by faith, as faith by hearing, as hearing by 
the word of God. As no one could hear God unless God had 
first spoken, and as no one could believe a message that he has 
never heard, so no one could repent of sin, as respects God, who 
has not first believed in his mercy. 

Notwithstanding these very obvious reflections, and almost 
primary and self-evident truths, there are a few learned men 
who, by reason of the fallacies of their own metaphysics, argue 
that repentance, or a change of heart, must precede faith ; and 
thus faith, instead of purifying the heart, is itself the ofispring 
of a pure heart. They quote a saying of the Messiah reported 
by Mark — "Repent and believe the gospeF' — in proof of their 
theory. The argument, thence deduced, is, that in the colloca- 
tion of these words, repentance precedes faith. But is this a 
sound argument ? Is the order of words in a sentence the ne- 
cessary order of things or of effects? Did not Peter command 
those who believed his first discourse, on asking what they 
should do, to repent and to be baptized ? Their propounding this 
question was upon the admission of his testimony ; and, there- 
fore, his commanding them not to believe, but to repent, is a 
clear intimation of the relation betvfeen faith and repentance. 
One fact is enough in this case : — ^the persons addressed already 
believed in God, and are now commanded to repeat of their sins 
against God, and to believe the gospel. "You believe in God,^' 
said the Messiah, "believe also in me.'' Paul did preach repent- 
ance to the Jew and to the Greek, who admitted there was a 
God, and then preached also faith in Jesus Christ, and a corre- 
sponding repentance. 

The same theorists who place repentance before faith, annihi- 
late the grace of God which appears in the gracious proclama- 
tion of mercy announced by Peter to the council of the Jewish 
nation, assembled to intimidate the Apostles in the work of 
their ministry. Peter af&rmed that Jesus was exalted to the 
right hand of God to be a Prince and a Saviour, to grant repent- 
ance to Israel. This they interpret as indicating that God 
works repentance in the hearts of the elect. " Israel represents 
the chosen race ;'' and "granting repentance'^ is with them "giv- 
ing it into their hearts.'' We have no business i^iih. their theory 
— to prove it true or to prove it false. Our business is to show 
that such would be a misconstruction of a very sublime and 



82 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

gracious declaration, and would certainly neutralize, if not 
stultify, the word also in the declaration of the brotherhood in 
Jerusalem, made to Peter, some seven years after this time : — 
** Then hath God also granted to the Gentiles repentance unto 
life/' What candid mind does not perceive that, if Israel re- 
presents the elect in the one passage, the term Gentiles must 
represent the non-elect in this passage ; and if the words 
" granting repentance" mean specially working it in the hearts 
of the elect, in the one passage, in the other it must mean that 
he works it in the heart of the non-elect ? This is still farther 
corroborated by the word also ; for in the similarity of the 
words "granting repentance to Israel,'' and "granting repent- 
ance to the Gentiles," also, superadded to the latter, must refer 
to the former, and affirm that in whatever sense he granted re- 
pentance to Israel he has granted it to the Gentiles. 

Having, as we conceive, now rescued this passage from the 
theoretic doctors, we shall next endeavour to appreciate it in its 
apostolic value and evangelical importance. It is, as we must 
think, a very sublime and exhilarating annunciation of a very 
grand scheme of mercy and deliverance to the whole world, Jew 
and Gentile, consequent upon the coronation of the new King of 
the Universe. This is the rudimental conception which, in the 
Apostle's speech, preceded the gracious development. As if he 
had said — "You the sanhedrim, in council assembled, con- 
demned to death and slew the Lord Jesus, hanging him upon 
a tree. But God condemned your sentence by raising him 
from the dead, and exalting him to his own right hand to be a 
Prince and a Saviour ; not, indeed, exalting him to pronounce 
upon you an irreversible doom of perdition and ruin for this 
your unparalleled crime, but for the purpose of tendering re- 
pentance as a foundation of remission of sins to his own nation 
and people — the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — his ancient 
friends." To ^^ grant repentance^^ is, then, to make room for the 
advantage of a change of views concerning him — a change of 
feeling or of heart to him — and a change of conduct towards 
him. It is to make possible a plenary remission of sins to all 
who are truly sorry for their sins, and, forsaking them, turn to 
the Lord. " To grant repentance" is, then, a most sublime in- 
dication of the mercy of God and of the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. It is a very sententious and summary annuncia- 
tion, that a system of grace and mercy is now adopted to lead 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 83 

man to repentance, that he " may obtain remission of sins, and 
an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified/^ 

This magnificent display of the glory of Divine grace was first 
tendered to the Jews — to those persons whose hearts were full 
of murder, and whose hands were full of blood. This was 
superlatively kind and divinely great; for certainly, if there 
was yet room in the bosom of God to allow repentance to Israel, 
no other nation or people should ever after despair. To confine 
the first publication of the gospel to the Jews, and to press it 
upon the acceptance of that hardened, disobedient, and wicked 
race, was laying a broad, and deep, and solid basis of hope in 
the mercy of God to all other people to whom it might after- 
wards be tendered. To them it was first sent, as was the Mes- 
siah himself, in person. But now, the Lord be praised and 
glorified for ever! it is most cordially and most importunately 
granted — tendered to all nations of the earth, with the assurance 
that Jesus has not only become the propitiation for the sins of 
the Jews, but also for the sins of the whole world ; so that faith, 
repentance, and baptism are, by the commandment of the ever- 
lasting God, now announced to all the world for the remission 
of sins. Kepentance, then, is a divinely chartered right, vouch- 
safed to every nation under heaven, through the mediation of 
the Lord Messiah. Hence Paul, the ambassador of the Messiah 
to the Gentiles, assured the idolatrous Athenians, that "God 
commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent.'^ 

The universality of this promulgation of repentance still far- 
ther merits our special attention. Its universality proves the 
universality of man's sin, the universality of God's grace, and 
the universality of human misery and ruin without it. If God 
commanded all men, everywhere, to repent, it certainly inti- 
mates that all men, everywhere, need repentance — that all men 
are guilty before God. This is not merely the weakness and 
frailty of human nature, so often complained of and lamented ; 
it is not the mere imputation to us of the sin of our common 
ancestor and representative ; but it is our voluntary ignorance 
of God — our voluntary ignorance of his will — or our mere indif- 
ference to the whole subject of the being, character, and will of 
God. It is, in other cases, our rebellion against his precepts, 
our disregard of a sense of duty, of the dictates of conscience, 
the known and often repeated violations of his law. A mere 
want of that perfection which he necessarily and kindly would 



84 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

require of us, alone renders all the world guilty before God. 
But more especially the present and most fearful condemnation 
that now presses upon that world to which we now belong, is — 
** that light has come into the world" — not natural light, nor 
legal light, but evangelical light — the light of life eternal, and 
men choose darkness — prefer ignorance, lust, and passion, to 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God radiating from 
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence the oft-repeated and 
awful oracle — "Unless you repent, you shall all perish." God, 
then, justly commands all men, everywhere, to repent. 

But the universality of the precept not only proves that all 
the world is guilty before God, but that "the mercy of God is 
unto all and upon all" that do repent. It is a promulgation of 
the universality of God's grace and mercy. He has granted 
repentance to Jew and Gentile, because he has grace and mercy 
for every penitent Jew and Gentile on the face of the earth. 
How real, then, the provisions of almighty love ! How vast the 
benevolence of God ! Truly God has inexpressibly loved man- 
kind, when "he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life." 
** He sent not his Son into the World to condemn the world, but 
that the world through him might be saved." It is, as the 
sequel may show, a conviction of this that leads man to reforma- 
tion of life, that reconciles him to God, and subdues his heart 
to the obedience of faith. 

But again : the universality of the proclamation of repent- 
ance renders it universally indispensable to forgiveness. Faith, 
without it, is dead and unavailing. "Works of any sort, without 
it, are unacceptable to God, and of no salutary influence upon 
him that performs them. Without repentance there is, there- 
fore, no salvation to any human being ; for certainly, if the uni- 
versality of a precept demonstrates the universality of its ob- 
jections ; if the universality of grace proves that all men may 
participate of it, so the universality of the precept repent, 
argues the necessity of repentance on the part of every indivi- 
dual, in order to his personal salvation ; and hence the conclu- 
sion is as logically as awfully true — no repentance, no salvation. 

Still, it is needful to press still farther upon the attention of 
the reader that faith is as ivxjlj ^' the foundation of repentance 
from dead works,'' as testimony is the foundation of faith. But 
faith receives its character and power from the character of the 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 85 

truth believed. Here arises the difference between what has 
improperly been contrasted legal and evangelical repentance — 
terms which define nothing — which are as useless as they are 
unscriptural. True, indeed, there is a repentance which arises 
from the consideration of the consequences of our actions, some- 
times called legal, set forth in the words before defined — a con- 
cern and terror on account of the fruit of our doings ; and there 
is also a change of mind arising from the consideration of the 
principles from which our actions proceed. Neither of these 
ideas, however, nor the designation of worldly and godly sorrow 
for our actions, expresses the view which we desire to commu- 
nicate. There is a repentance that arises from a discovery of 
the character and grace of God developed in the gospel, in 
making provision for the pardon of sin, which characterizes 
that change of mind designated repentance unto life as a "re- 
pentance towards God ;'' and there is a repentance which arises 
merely from the dread of punishment, without any hatred of 
sin or love of holiness. 

An enlightened and genuine convert to the gospel repents of 
every antecedent repentance; for, in truth, a repentance that 
merely springs from the shame or penalty of transgression, is 
such a proof of moral degradation as to call for repentance from 
every one that knows the grace of God in truth. Hence the 
discriminating Paul taught the Corinthians that there was a 
repentance not to be repented of, which clearly implies that 
there might be, as, in fact, there is, a repentance that needs to 
*' be repented of.'' 

Thus are we led, step by step, up to the apprehension of "re- 
pentance unto lifeJ' Such a repentance implies, because it 
requires, an antecedent faith in some proposition having life in 
it ; for the life is not in the repentance, but in that to which it 
leads. The life is proposed as the end, while repentance is but 
the means to attain it. Yet are they inseparably connected ; 
for this life is not^without repentance, nor this repentance with- 
out life. Views there are, in the faith, and motives inspired by 
it, which, when perceived and possessed, work this mysterious 
and sublime change. It is light that makes manifest every 
thing. Yet light is very different from the things manifested by 
it. It is the truth developed in the great proposition that God 
is, by Christ, reconciling a world to himself, not imputing to men 
their trespasses, but beseeching them to be reconciled to him, because 



86 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Tie has made Ms Son a sinroffering for us, iliai we might he made 
perfectly righteous through him. Now, all this is comprehended 
in that cardinal proposition, on the belief of which the Lord 
promised to build his church, viz: — that '•^ Jesus is the Messiah^ 
the Son of the living GodJ^ It is this sublime proposition, ap- 
prehended and realized by faith, that works repentance unto 
life ; that subdues, softens, pacifies, and reconciles the heart to 
God, and prepares it to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. 

This is that cardinal element in the gospel which contains in 
it the principle of eternal life. Christ, indeed, is our life. "Our 
life is hid with Christ in God.'^ But to us Christ is first pre- 
sented in the testimony concerning him ; then he is in the faith 
of him that believes that testimony ; then in his heart he be- 
comes "the hope of glory ;'' and, finally, in his life of righteous- 
ness and holiness, he is manifested to the world. This, indeed, 
constitutes " a reformation not to be repented of.^' 

Now, the preaching of the gospel is the only divinely-appointed 
means for producing this sublimely moral and spiritual renova- 
tion of heart. Christ must be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit 
in all the fulness of his grace, and all the attractions of his love. 
He must be made to stand out before us as " the brightness of 
his Father's glory'' — as the "express image" of his glorious 
and lovely character. His obedience unto death, his voluntary 
sacrifice of himself for our sins, the unspeakable value of his 
blood, as the only means of expiation and personal purification, 
must be fully set before the mind, as well as the necessity of 
his death, to honour and justify God in justifying a sinful man. 

If, indeed, repentance unto life be a change of our views, of 
our affections, and of our conduct, as it most certainly is, then 
that person, in relation to whom our views, affections, and con- 
duct are to be changed, must be developed to our apprehension 
in such an attitude and character as to be the proper means of 
accomplishing such a change. 

The revelation of the Father, and of the Son, is not made to 
us through the works of nature or the schemes of providence 
and moral government. This revelation is exclusively confined 
to the work of redemption. Hence the necessity of correct 
views and a just appreciation of the nature of the death of 
Christ as an atoning sacrifice. That is the radiating centre of 
the whole remedial system. It is in that we discover all the 
divine excellencies. It is there, and only there, that inflexible 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 87 

justice, immaculate purity, inviolate truth, and infinite mercy, 
appear in perfect harmony with each other, combining all their 
effulgence and glory in opening for us a way into the holiest of 
all. Beholding there, as in a reflecting mirror, the purity of 
God and our own deformity ; the majesty of his government 
and the dignity of his law ; the malignity and hatefulness of 
sin, in contrast with the beauty and loveliness of holiness, right- 
eousness, and truth, we are changed into the same image from 
glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Thus contemplating 
him whom our sins have pierced, we Ibegin to mourn over them, 
and to abhor them ; we prostrate ourselves before his throne of 
mercy, and, with the humble and penitent publican, we say : 
** God be merciful to me a sinner.'^ Such is that repentance 
unto life which God, through Jesus Christ, has granted to the 
Jew and to the Greek. 

In the Geneva version of the New Testament, as well as in 
some other ancient English versions, "amend your life'' and 
'* amendment of life" are used for repent and repentance. Ke- 
form and reformation, in the judgment of some of our best 
critics, are to be preferred to repent or amend your lives. But 
all sound interpreters agree in this, that, while a change of mind, 
including a change of views and a change of feelings, is, by the 
etymology and use of the original term, clearly indicated, and 
essential to the requisitions of the gospel ; still the consumma- 
tion and evidence of "repentance unto life," or of "repentance 
towards God," is a new and holy life. To which, indeed, a 
change of views and a change of the heart are indispensable. 
Therefore it is that the phrases "repentance unto life," "recon- 
ciliation to God," "reformation," are representatives of the 
same great radical change contemplated under different forms 
and figures of speech. 

True repentance never fails to manifest itself in all cases of 
injury to the person, character, or property of our neighbour, 
by an immediate redress, as far as possible, of any injury we 
may have done him. The Jewish law of offerings for trespass 
on the rights of others, made a restitution and satisfaction to 
the injured in all cases in which it was possible, essential to for- 
giveness. No acknowledgment to the Lord— ^no offering to the 
priest, could obtain remission, unless the injury done was re- 
dressed to the full amount possible. Zaccheus repented of all 
his wrongs done to his neighbours in this way, and was honoured 



S8 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

by the Messiah in a very public and impressive manner. Ifc 
has reason and law, and the approbation of the Messiah, to en- 
force it. 

Christians, when delinquent in any duty, when backsliding or 
simply growing cold, are also commanded to repent — to do their 
first works. Every allusion to repentance unto life indicates 
that it is no mere change of a creed, a theory, or a profession. 
It is a real, positive change of heart and of life. "Old things 
are passed away, all things are become new." " Fruits meet for 
repentance" are always expected to be consequent upon the 
profession of it. Without these, the pretension is idle and de- 
ceptions. These fruits are truth, piety, justice, humanity ; the 
crucifixion of the flesh, with all its afiections and lusts. " The 
grace of God which brings salvation teaches us that, denying 
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, right- 
eously, and godly, in this present evil world." Such is evan- 
gelical repentance, in deed and in truth. 

Its connection with faith as its fruit, as its constant concomitant, 
is, we hope, from the evidences adduced, and the accompanying 
reflections, sufficiently apparent. Its whole importance in the 
Christian system cannot be contemplated apart from other pre- 
cepts and duties very intimately associated with it. We have 
but in part traced its connection with faith, with the word of 
truth, with the Spirit of God, with the sacrifice of the Messiah, 
It is intimately .associated with Christian baptism. So intimate 
is this connection, that both by John the Baptist and Peter, and 
the other Apostles, it is made to precede it as essential to its 
practical benefit to the subject of that holy ordinance. It will 
again fall in our path to hear and contemplate the connection 
between faith, repentance, baptism, and the remission of sins. 
Meantime, it must suffice to say, that all the links of that golden 
chain of grace which connects and binds our souls to the throne 
of God, are most intimately connected with one another ; and 
the institutions and ordinances that call for them as prerequi- 
sites, are most happily devised, not only to display that connec- 
tion, but also to make each one of them contribute, in the proper 
time and place, that amount of blessing to us which our condi- 
tion and circumstances in life so necessarily require. 

The duty of repentance is, indeed, always obligatory on every 
one that commits any act of impiety or immorality. Without 
repentance, pardon of sin is impossible. God cannot forgive 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 89 

the impenitent. It would be doing the offender a great wrong, 
and God a great dishonour. There is a state of mind suitable 
to the reception of the grace of forgiveness. In the absence 
of that state, it could not be enjoyed. Hence, motives to lead 
man to this state are indispensable ; and according to the mo- 
tives, so is that state of mind to which the Lord has always been 
pleased to vouchsafe this gift. He is not willing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance — ^thereby indi- 
cating that then, and not till then, can any one be saved. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

COVENANTS OF PROMISE — CIRCUMCISION. 

** And he gare him the covenant of circumcision ; and Abraham begat Isaac, and 
circumcised him the eighth day." — Stephen. Acts yii. 8. 

The Creator of the universe, the Father of angels and of men, 
has always operated according to a previous purpose, and go- 
verned according to an antecedent law. Creation, providence, 
and redemption are, indeed, but the execution and development 
of eternal counsels. The universe is one grand system, the result 
of a well-matured plan, the consummation of a previously-existing 
scheme. It is not an accident, a contingency, a fortuitous con* 
course of atoms ; but a sublime system of adaptations tending 
to a complete and perfect development of its author, according 
to the intellectual and moral capacities of his rational offspring. 
With our greatest apostle we say — " Of him, and through him, 
and to him are all things : to whom be glory for ever and ever. 
Amen !" 

So much of the universe, its author, and plan, as man can 
understand and enjoy, as he is now constituted, God has kindly 
opened to his contemplation and apprehension. All beyond 
this is designed for future development, or for other ranks of 
intelligence above us. Meantime, a volume has been kindly 
presented to man, containing an account of himself, his origin, 
present condition, and future destiny. It is such a revelation 
of God and of man, such a record of the past, and such an anti- 

8* 



90 ANTECEDENTS OE BAPTISM. 

cipation of the future, as meets all the intellectual wants and 
moral exigencies of the human race. 

This divinely-inspired volume proceeds upon the plan of a 
gradual and progressive development, adapting itself to all the 
conditions of human existence. The human family having an 
infancy, a childhood, a manhood, and an old age, the Book of 
God not only recognises these conditions of our existence, but 
admirably adapts itself to them all. We have the bud and the 
blossom, the green and the ripe fruit of humanity, as we have 
them in other departments of nature. So have we a character- 
istic unity of plan, a characteristic progression and development 
in all the works and ways of God to man. It is the same great 
mind, the same supreme intelligence, the same active benevo- 
lence, working everywhere and at all times in the communica- 
tion of himself to his intelligent and moral offspring. 

God appears first as a Creator ; next as a Preserver ; then as 
Governor of his own universe. In all these attitudes, as in the 
special case of man's redemption, he not only uniformly acts 
according to a previous plan, but in all his plans and operations 
there is a peculiar unity or similarity of action. In creation he 
operated through authoritative precepts. "He spake, and it 
was done ;'' he commanded, and, from nothing previously exist- 
ing, the hosts of the universe arose at his bidding ; his simple 
volition, assuming the form of an oral precept, gave birth to the 
universe and all that inhabit it. The six days' operations make 
but one imperative sentence, solemnly pronounced. The word 
of God is, therefore, the Constitution of the Universe. 

As the human body to the soul, so is the word of God to his 
volition. His word is but the vehicle through which his crea- 
tive power manifests itself. It is the mere form or embodi- 
ment of his volition — the annunciation of his purpose. God 
always works by means, never without them. The means, 
indeed, are but the envelope of his will. The connection be- 
tween the means and the end is not always apparent, and pro- 
bably never fully understood. 

Can any one show the necessary connection between com- 
manding light to spring out of darkness, and the shining forth 
of light ? Yet, at the bidding of God, darkness brought forth 
light ! We still enlighten the world by making the darkest and 
blackest of all things the parent of light, and the medium of 
general information. What is more opaque than a metallic 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM, 91 

type ? What is blacker than ink ? Yet these are the suns and 
the stars of the intellectual and moral world. It is not the 
carte hlaifhche, the pure white paper, but the dark letters upon it, 
that enlighten the world. Probably the means and the end 
were never more alike, nor more philosophically connected, 
than in the case of bringing light out of darkness by a metallic 
type covered with ink. 

The universe, resting upon the word of God, the embodiment 
of his will, has, therefore, a fixed and immutable constitution. 
Nature (a term not generally well understood) is but the con- 
stitutional operation of a conservative law. Man, in his physi- 
cal constitution, is wholly at the disposal and under the control 
of the common law that presides over the destinies of all other 
terrestrial bodies. 

But he has a mind as well as a body. He has a moral as 
well as a physical constitution. His happiness is not earthly 
and sensual, but designed to be both spiritual and heavenly. 
Hence the necessity of a moral constitution for moral agents 
capable of enjoying a spiritual system. Man must, indeed, be 
governed by some supreme divinity. He must have a consti- 
tuted and absolute sovereign Lord and Master. And there 
must be some supreme constitution, or law, or covenant, by 
which his Sovereign and himself can understand each other and 
maintain perpetual amity. He may honour the God that made 
him, or make a god for himself. A god he must have. And 
he may accept of a constitution or covenant from God, or make 
one with Satan and ruin, A covenant he must have. 

Thus advance we through the portico of experience to the 
threshold of the temple of revelation. Standing here on con- 
secrated ground, we feel the need of just such a system — 
such constitutional provisions as are indicated in the ^'cove- 
nants of promise,'^ with which the volumes of divine revela- 
tion abound, and by which these volumes are divided into several 
parts. 

The Bible covenants are connected with the names of Adam, 
Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, David, Jesus the Messiah. 
These are all, more or less, public transactions. We shall, 
therefore, severally examine them, and deduce from the analysis 
some practical and useful conclusions. 

But first it may be asked. What do we understand by a cove- 
nant f An analysis of the covenants themselves will best indi- 



92 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

cate this. But In anticipation of the result of such an examina* 
tion, we shall now define the term. 

Amongst men we have covenants. In these there are parties. 
One may sometimes be the covenanter — ^the other the covenan- 
tee. The former propounds — the latter accepts the stipulation. 
These terms are, however, seldom used. Both parties are most 
generally both covenanters and covenantees. They both stipu* 
late and re-stipulate. Such covenants are agreements or bonds 
entered into between two or more parties on certain terms. 
Such the Greeks called a suntJieekee — ^the Latins a foedus — ^we a 
covenant, because that word literally indicates a coming together 
— an agreement. With us, indeed, a constitution, or a form of 
government, because an agreement on certain principles between 
the government and the citizens, is, to all intents and purposes, a 
covenant. 

The Hebrew term heritli, derived from harar, to purify, indi- 
cating a purification, usually by sacrifice, is that used to repre- 
sent these transactions in the book of Genesis and throughout 
the Jewish Scriptures. This word is represented in the Sep- 
tuagint, or Greek version, by the term diatJieehee, and never by 
suntJieehee, In a suntJieekee, or covenant between man and man, 
the parties are or may be equal. They are always human 
beings. But in a diatlieekee one of the parties may be so far 
above the other in rank and nature, as to propound all the 
items of the institution or covenant to the other party ; to which 
that party must accede in order to the participation of the bless- 
ings or benefits proposed in the institution. Hence, precepts 
as well as promises are called covenants when they emanate 
from God, and have any benefits annexed to them. When any 
service is exacted, or any duty commanded, by an ofiended party, 
and made the condition of friendship or agreement with the 
ofiending party, it may be called a diafheekee in the Jewish ac- 
ceptation. Divine covenants having always been founded upon 
sacrifice is, indeed, the best reason for their having been called 
herith. It is very obvious that without sacrifice to purify the 
party taken into covenant with God, no transaction of this sort 
was ever valid, or regarded as ratified. This may, indeed, be 
the reason why the first covenant or charter given to man is not 
called anywhere in the Scripture a covenant, though possessing 
all the constituents of a covenant, sacrifice only excepted. But 
as theologians of all schools have called this transaction a cove- 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 93 

nant, wanting sacrifice, we shall in our list of covenants give to 
it its usual title, and proceed to adduce these public transaction^ 
as they occur in the Jewish writings. 

When God instituted human society by the creation of tho 
original pair, he immediately granted to them a charter or insti- 
tution indicative of their relations to him, and declarative of 
the conditions of their future happiness. This has sometimes 
been theologically called a covenant of works, in contrast with 
a covenant of grace. But there were no works prescribed in 
this institution. It was a charter, a stipulation, and a guaran- 
tee of liberty and life to man. It removed all suspense and un- 
certainty as to the extent of his liberty or the continuance of 
his felicity. It was liberty and life secured by an immutable 
charter on no other condition than to observe a prescribed limit. 
Its seal was the tree of life, by the fruit of which our progeni- 
tors might have lived for ever, did they but keep within the 
precincts of that liberty and bliss kindly secured to them by 
this Divine institution. Such was the original charter vouch>- 
safed to man. 

The second covenant or institution of favour bestowed upon 
our race was that conferred on the father and founder of the 
postdiluvian world. After the deluge God kindly gave to Noah 
an assurance that he would never repeat that calamity again. 
It was a charter concerning " day and night, seed-time and har- 
vest, summer and winter," in all coming time. Jer. xxxiii. 20- 
25. Gen. ix. 1-9. Its seal or pledge is the rainbow. 

The third institution was that tendered to Abraham in the 
seventy-fifth year of his life, and of the world 2083, guarantying 
to him a son, a great public benefactor, in whom all the families 
of the earth should be blessed. These three institutions were 
of a very public character, being tendered to the human race. 
The whole world is interested in each of them. Life and liberty 
were covenanted in the first ; day and night, seed-time and har- 
vest in the second ; a redeemer and benefactor is promised in 
the third. 

But to secure and develop all the blessings of the third, 
other institutions were annexed. One concerning an inherit- 
ance for the family from which the world^s benefactor was to 
arise ; the other concerning a special providence which in all 
temporal favours would distinguish the family of this most il- 
lustrious philanthropist. That concerning the inheritance is 



94 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, and that concerning 
the special providence in the seventeenth. The former occurred 
immediately before the birth of Ishmael, in the eighty-sixth of 
Abraham, and the latter about the same time before the birth 
of Isaac, in the ninety-ninth of Abraham. 

The covenant guarantying the inheritance was confirmed over 
sacrifice ; that concerning the family, by circumcision. The land 
was to be bought at the price of the blood of its inhabitants, — 
the family blessings by insulating the people of Abraham from 
all other families by the circumcision of the males of his house- 
hold while yet infants, without their knowledge or consent. 
This is the transaction which Stephen denominated the " cove- 
nant of circumcision.^' The covenant first stipulated with 
Abraham on his departure from Ur of Chaldea is by Paul called 
**the covenant concerning Christ J^ That concerning Christ 
was in the seventy-fifth, while that concerning the flesh or cir- 
cumcision was in the ninety-ninth of Abraham. These trans- 
actions, though not so extensive and public as the three former 
institutions, are nevertheless both public and national. The 
whole world is interested in the first three ; the whole family 
of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob in the last two. 

True, the Gentiles as well as the Jews derive advantages, 
though not the same advantages, from these institutions. By 
locating the family of Abraham in a well-defined country, whose 
boundaries are given, and by putting upon every male child an 
indelible mark in the flesh declarative of the covenant with 
Abraham, the Gentiles are assisted in deciding the pretensions 
of Jesus of Nazareth to be the covenanted Saviour of the world. 

But as there were two great promises in these institutions 
vouchsafed to Abraham, one concerning his natural, the other 
concerning his supernatural ofispring — and as the whole human 
race was interested in the one or the other, or in both, each one 
of these promises was at a proper period developed in a great 
national institution — one represented by Sarah and the other by 
Hagar, the typical mothers of Abraham's ofi'spring. Two king- 
doms, one of this world, and one ** not of this world,^' were built 
upon these two institutions. That of this world Paul allegorically 
sets forth in the character and relation of Hagar and her son 
Ishmael ; the other, *' not of this world,'' he sets forth in the 
same style in the relation and character of Sarah and her son 
Isaac. One of these was dispensed to all Israel by the mediator 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 95 

Moses — the other to all the believing sons of Abraham in all 
nations by the mediator Jesus. One of these institutions, from 
Mount Sinai, is now called the Old Covenant, generating to 
bondage ; the other is called the New Covenant, from Jerusalem 
above, of the character of the free woman, the mother of all the 
free-born sons of God. 

Besides these public institutions, we shall allude to two 
others — one concerning the priesthood of Aaron, the other con- 
cerning the throne of David ; one concerning the mitre, the 
other concerning the sceptre of Israel. The priesthood was 
covenanted to Aaron, the sceptre to David. Each of these is 
designated as a covenant. "Thou shalt anoint the sons of 
Aaron as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minis- 
ter to me in the priest's office: for their anointing shall surely 
be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.'^ Ex. 
xl. 13-15. Again, " Behold I give unto the son of Eleazer, the 
son of Aaron, my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and 
his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priest- 
hood.'' Num. xxv. 12, 13. 

Concerning the kingdom he saith — " The Lord hath rent the 
kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a 
neighbour of thine, better than thou. The Strength of Israel 
will not lie, nor repent : for he is not a man that he should re- 
pent.'' 1 Sam. XV. 28. " The Lord hath sworn to David to 
translate the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the 
throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to 
Beersheba." 2 Sam. iii. 9, 10. " I have made a covenant with 
my chosen ; I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will 
I establish for ever, and huild up thy throne to all generations^' 
Ps. Ixxxix. 3. " Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will 
not lie unto David: his seed shall endure for ever, and his 
throne as the sun before me." Ps. Ixxxix. 35, 36. 

From all these transactions of divine authority, these gifts and 
promises of God, considered in the aggregate, and each one 
minutely analyzed, we come to the following conclusions : — 

1. Of these nine covenants, God was always one party. They 
were all divine institutions. 

2. Seven of them were made with individual men. These 
men were Adam, Noah, Abraham, renewed to Isaac, and again 
to Jacob, Aaron, and David ; but they were all public men, heads 
and representatives of families^ and nations. 



96 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM- 

' 3. Each of them had a blessing peculiar to itself. They were 
all gracious. The first guarantied life and liberty ; the second, 
day and night, seed-time and harvest, without a second and uni- 
versal deluge ; the third, the blessing of all nations, spiritually 
and eternally, in a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; the 
fourth secured an inheritance ; the fifth promised a special pro- 
vidence; the sixth conferred the office of the priesthood — 
atonement, intercession, and benediction, in the name of Jeho- 
vah, to Aaron and his first-born sons ; the seventh gave the 
gceptre and throne of Israel to David and his sons for ever. 

4. Two of them became the constitutions of kingdoms. The 
Jewish state was founded upon that mediated by Moses at 
Mount Sinai. The Christian church is founded upon that pro- 
mised in Jeremiah xxxi. 31-34, developed in the Apostolic 
Records — especially Hebrews, 8th chapter. 

5. Each of them had an appropriate seal, pledge, or token 
connected with it. They were solemnly closed and confirmed 
bonds, or charters. There is a singular appositeness and con- 
geniality between the seals and pledges of these institutions and 
their provisions. For example, the Covenant of Life and Lib- 
erty, or the Adamic Institution, had the Tree of Life for its 
pledge and security. The Covenant against a Deluge, guaran- 
tying day and night, seed-time and harvest, has the Rainbow in 
the bosom of a dark and portentous cloud ; that concerning the 
Messiah had a simple oath; that concerning an inheritance 
bought with blood was sealed by the usual signs of ancient 
treaties — the parties passing between the divided bodies of vic- 
tims ; that concerning temporal blessings connected with the 
fleshly ofi'spring of Abraham, was confirmed by circumcision ; 
that at Mount Sinai, ministered by Moses, was sealed with ani- 
mal blood and sacrifices ; the New Covenant, with the most pre- 
cious blood of the Son of God ; the Covenant of Peace with 
Aaron and his sons, by an oath ; and that with David concern- 
ing the sceptre and throne of Israel, with an oath ; the kingdom 
of the Messiah, as now administered by a Royal Priest, Melchi- 
zedeck's antitype, is also confirmed by an oath. The seals of all 
these public charters, institutions, or covenants, (for these worda 
in their respective prominent attributes fully represent them,) 
were, then — the Tree of Life, tJie EainboWy Sacrifice, Circum- 
Qision, Animal Blood, smeared or sprinkled, (whence came the 
red wafer and the red, wax,) the Oath of God, 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 97 

Of these institutions those sealed with the oath of God are the 
most sublime. " The covenant confirmed of God '' in relation to 
the Messiah, had no seal but the oath of God. Hence the two 
covenants emblematic of its virtues — the mitre and the throne — 
were solemnized by oaths. The covenant of peace through 
blood, and covenant of royalty and power, complete the official 
glory of the Messiah. The Lord has given him for a covenant, 
a sacrifice, a purifier to his people. " He is made of God to us 
wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption.^' 

Concerning seals or signs, wherever God has annexed them, 
we have to remark, that they are either monumental of the facts 
on which the covenant is founded, or they are pledges and seals 
securing to the covenantees the blessings of the institution. 

Circumcision was both a sign and a seal. So Paul affirms. 
Of Abraham he says, " He received the sign of circumcision,'' 
a " seal of the righteousness of that faith" which yet uncircum- 
cised he possessed. He uses terms indicative of very different 
ideas. A sign, {seemeion,) a token or monument of a transac- 
tion ; and a seal, [sphragis,] a guarantee, a pledge of approba- 
tion, a pledge confirmatory. Circumcision was then a sign to 
all the circumcised, a token, a monument significant of the sepa- 
ration of Israel to God under a special providence. 

Signs intimate the same things to all the proper subjects of 
them ; consequently, as a sign, circumcision intimated the same 
thing to every individual — Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac — or any 
infant son or servant taken into that institution. But it sealed 
to Abraham what it did not seal to Ishmael, Isaac, or any other 
person. It was to him a seal of righteousness before possessed — 
a ^ Righteousness of faith J' This it could not be to them, nor to 
any infant or unbelieving Pagan. Nor, indeed, was it ever a 
seal to any other human being of any moral excellence, faith, or 
righteousness possessed before it. Its being a divine token, or 
mark confirmatory or approbatory of the single faith of Abra- 
ham, was altogether peculiar ; because by his faith he became 
the father of all believers in all ages ; and, therefore, the cove- 
nant of circumcision was given to him alone in approbation of 
his faith. His faith is thus made a model faith. If a million 
of believing men had been circumcised after the manner of 
Abraham, not one of them could say his faith was a model faith, 
or that his circumcision was a divine seal approbatory of his 
faith, nor could any one say it of them. On this subject there 



98 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

are volumes of false and absurd reasonings from men who, on 
other subjects, are learned and rational. 

The style of the Apostle is, indeed, itself indicative of all this 
difference. He says " he received the sign of circumcision'^ — 
the token of the covenant — **a seal of the righteousness of the 
faith.'^ It was the token and a seal. To all it was' tJie token — 
to Abraham alone it was a seal of the righteousness of a faith 
before possessed. As tTie token, it was common to all — as a seal, 
it was peculiar to one, and only one man of all the race. 

To every other human being circumcised according to the 
covenant, it signified the same thing. It did not mean one thing 
to A and another to B. It signified no spiritual blessings, it 
sealed no eternal blessings to Isaac more than to Ishmael — to 
Jacob, more than Esau — to John, more than to Judas. This is 
true, whether contemplated as a sign or a seal. The seal to a 
bond confirms and secures just the specifications of the bond ; 
and neither more nor less than the specifications to every one 
named in it. Now, Annas and Caiaphas, Judas and Paul, were 
just as proper subjects for circumcision as David or Daniel, as 
Moses or Aaron. It secured only the provisions of that cove- 
nant. But neither the promise of the Holy Spirit, nor re- 
mission of sins, nor eternal life, were among the provisions of 
the covenant of circumcision. It, therefore, was neither the 
sign nor the seal of them. It was a covenant in the flesh, per- 
taining to the flesh, and confined to the flesh, specified in the cove- 
nant. 'It was not for all flesh, but for some flesh — for that flesh 
only which was in Abraham, or which would amalgamate with 
the flesh of Abraham. Abraham's son, Abraham's servant, or 
any one with or without faith, that would join with them in 
their fortunes, might receive it ; but no one else. Indeed, of aU 
covenants, human or divine, it may be affirmed that their bene- 
fits belong alike to every covenantee — that whatever is legally 
covenanted in them to one, belongs alike to every other legal 
subject of them. This single truth, as plain as any other Bible 
truth, for ever settles all debates among reasonable men as to 
the provisions of this or any other covenant. 

The covenant with Noah, the covenant concerning Christ, the 
covenant concerning the worldly inheritance, the covenant of 
the priesthood, the covenant of the sceptre, the covenant at 
Mount Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision are all alike in 
this particular. Eve^ covenantee inherits equally and identi- 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 99 

cally the same constitutional or chartered rights and immuni- 
ties, just as every naturalized citizen of the United States has 
all the same constitutional rights and privileges of every other 
naturalized citizen. Every one in Noah's covenant, every first- 
born son of Aaron, every one in the national covenant medi- 
ated by Moses, and every one in the covenant of circumcision 
derived the same advantages from the covenant of which he was 
a proper subject. 

Paul, indeed, asks and answers the question " what profit was 
there in circumcision j^' and "what advantage hath the Jew?'' 
Many advantages, indeed, were connected with it. But what 
was the chief advantage ? Regeneration ? Remission of sins ? 
The Holy Spirit ? Life everlasting ? No, no : not any one of 
these — but ** chiefly to them were committed the oracles of GodJ' 
The Gentiles now have these oracles without faith, without cir- 
cumcision, without baptism. This, indeed, makes faith, regene- 
ration, spiritual and eternal salvation possible ; and this, indeed, 
is a great blessing. So, then, the matter of circumcision, as to 
its advantage, is settled by high authority. It gave the oracles 
of God in keeping to the Jewish nation. This was its nighest 
approach to spiritual blessings 1 

But circumcision became a type. Of what? TTie circumci- 
sion of the heart. The manna became a type, the Sabbath be- 
came a type, the stricken rock became a type, Jordan became a 
type, and why should not circumcision become a type ? We, 
believing Gentiles, are now " the circumcision,^' because (not 
in the flesh, but) " in the spirit we worship God, rejoice in 
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,'' neither in 
cutting, nor washing, nor cleansing the flesh. This once was 
the outward circumcision in the flesh ; but neither baptism nor 
any other ordinance came in room of it. Such talk is a scandal 
to the age. The circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit 
came in room of the circumcision of the flesh by the knife of a 
Jewish father or a mother, a master or a mistress. Circumci- 
sion is now " that of the heart," and not of the law in the flesh, 
** but in the spirit," " whose praise" (because the operation is 
invisible) " is not of man, but of God." The ancient prophets 
that preached concerning Christ and hi« kingdom were wont to 
say, " Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts." " Make you a 
new heart," &c. 

It was the stress of the tempest of debal^ that first compelled 



100 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

a portion of Protestant Christendom to make baptism instead 
of the Holy Spirit stand in the room of circumcision. And yet 
of all theological logicians, they are the least entitled to our con- 
fidence who can make the sign of a covenant concerning the flesh, 
the sign of a covenant concerning the spirit ; — ^who can tear 
away the seal from one bond, and patch in its stead the seal of 
another bond. Or, what is the same thing, write a new bond 
over an old seal ! From such logicians and theologians we all 
pray for a deliverance. 

The myriads of Jews converted to the faith of Jesus as the 
Messiah that were baptized, notwithstanding their former cir- 
cumcision, and the myriads of baptized Christian Jews that, 
during much of the apostolic age, continued to circumcise their 
children, one would think might have thrown some obstacle in 
the way of such reasoners as find for infant baptism a pretext 
in infant circumcision. They have, indeed, a faith that removes 
mountains ; — a faith in human authority that removes the moun- 
tains interposed by Apostles and Prophets between their pre- 
mises and their conclusions. 

That Jesus and the Holy Twelve had all been circumcised and 
afterwards baptized ; that all the first converts to Christianity 
were circumcised persons, had upon them the sign of circum- 
cision, yet commanded every one to be baptized, is, in their 
vision, no obstacle to the theory of baptism in room of circum- 
cision. Hundreds of years passed away before any one thought 
of making baptism a substitute for infant circumcision. 

Our main object, indeed, in thus inquiring into covenants, 
their signs and seals, is rather to enforce the necessity of cove- 
nanting with the Lord, than to descant upon the false reason- 
ings and erroneous conclusions of such fathers as are looked up 
to for authority in introducing a new covenant for infants to 
sign before they can read it, or hear it read. Faith and repent- 
ance, of which we have taken some notice in former essays, are 
peculiar to no dispensation of religion, nor to any age of the 
world. Since man fell till the present moment, faith and repent* 
ance have always been indispensable to deliverance from sin. 
" He that cometh to God must first believe that he is, and that 
he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.'' But the 
institutions and charters of privilege have difiered in some re- 
spects, as time has advanced. Covenants of promise and of 
privilege have, indeed, always been in existence; and God's 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 101 

people have always been in covenant with God. The gospel is, 
indeed, presented in the form of a covenant. The Messiah 
seals it as his covenant — "the new," **the better," "the ever- 
lasting covenant" He is himself both the covenant, and the 
Mediator of it, as he is himself the victim, the altar, and the 
priest. We are said to be " in Christ ;" but before we are in 
him, we must come into him by covenant. He is the oath of 
God accomplished, and we take the vow; God is the covenanter, 
Christ the covenant, and we the covenantees ; we are recon- 
ciled to God through him. He sealed the covenant with his own 
blood. The Lord^s supper is the pledge of it. But he will have 
us to die, to be buried, and to rise again for him, as he died, 
was buried, and rose again for us. Hence the institution of 
Christian baptism. We must pass through the solemn sign, and 
must lie with him in the grave and rise with him to a new and 
better life. These are outward signs of an inward and true and 
real covenant with the Lord, by and through which we indivi- 
dually, each one for himself, are made partakers of the fulness 
of the blessings of the gospel of Christ. Every covenant pro- 
pounded by God to man since his fall is based upon sacrifice. 
No intercourse between God and rebel man can be instituted 
upon any other principle. Every Divine stipulation is a stipula- 
tion of mercy dictated by a pure benevolence, a Divine philan- 
thropy, and based upon such a sacrifice as inflexible justice and 
immaculate purity can approbate and acquiesce in. There is 
no covenant of redemption based upon human effort or human 
merit. All God's overtures are the offspring of pure, unmerited 
favour. The conditions propounded are not merely to justify 
God before the universe, though that must be always secured ; 
but benevolence requires that man should believe what God 
says, feel in harmony with all his requisitions, and obey from 
his heart every precept. The conditions of believing what God 
says and of doing what God commands, are all conditions of 
grace, of justice, and of pure benevolence. God, with all re- 
verence be it spoken, can make no sinful man happy in any 
other way than the gospel propounds. Our duty, our honour, 
our interest, and our happiness are equally consulted and se- 
cured in accepting the covenant of life through the obedience 
•unto death of God's beloved Son. This we do by obeying from 
the heart the precepts of righteousness and mercy delivered to 

us by the holy Apostles. Thus we enter into covenant with 

9* 



102 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM, 

God, we become his, and he becomes ours the instant we obey 
from the heart the Apostles' doctrine. 

Before closing, for the present, the whole subject of coyenant- 
ing, we may add that there are times, occasions, and circum- 
stances requiring us, or, at least, nicking it expedient for us, to 
stipulate private and personal covenants with God — indeed, 
times when communities may and ought to enter into covenant 
with one another and with the Lord, We can adduce good ex- 
amples for such transactions from the history of the age of reve- 
lation. Individual men and communities of good men may, 
and indeed in some cases ought, to enter into a covenant with 
God. Jacob, on his way to Padan-Aram, is one case of this sort;, 
and Nehemiah and the reformers of his time are another case 
in point. But of these we cannot now speak particularly. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FLESH AND SPIRIT — LIBERTY AND NECESSITY — NEW INSTITUTION, 

It was observed in our chapter on ^^ Oovtnants of Promise,'' 
that those vouchsafed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were 
finally engrossed and developed in two grand social institutions, 
called "the Old and New Covenants.'^ Each of these had its 
own peculiar provisions, precepts, promises, and mediator. 
Moses mediated and administered the one ; Jesus the Messiah 
mediates and administers the other. 

These great institutions are very improperly called, on the 
title-page of our Bibles, "the Old and New Testaments." " Tes- 
taments are of no force," said Paul, "while the testator lives." 
Whether a true or false version of the original, this, certainly, 
is a true saying. The last will and testament is made valid and 
obligatory by the death of the testator. But neither God nor 
Jesus Christ made two last wills or testaments. Hence the title- 
page of the apostolic writings usually printed "The New Tes- 
tament OF OUR Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," is every way 
inadmissible. First, a neio testament of Jesus Christ implies . 
that there was an old one ! Is this a fact ? Again, if there be 
two testaments of Jesus Christ, the last one only is valid, ac- 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 103 

cording to the proper meaning of the word, and the reasoning 
of the Apostle. But does any one believe that Jesus Christ 
made first one will, and then changed it, making it void, by a 
second — or last will and testament I Yet all our Bibles pub- 
lished "6y authority, ^^ perpetrate this great mistake, this palpa- 
ble aberration from propriety. Translate it "the covenant of 
Jesus Christ,'' or "a new covenant administered by Jesus Christ ^^ 
and we speak rationally, scripturally, and intelligibly. God has 
given to mankind in the Bible two great covenants, the first ad- 
ministered by his servant, Moses, the second by his Son, Jesus 
Christ, our blessed Lord. The former is the old, the latter the 
new covenant. By a figure of speech very common, the Jewish 
writings are called the old covenant, because they contain, it, 
and grow out of it ; and by the same figure, the Christian Scrip- 
tures are called the new covenant, because they contain it and 
originate from it. 

These two grand social institutions, it was also remarked, are 
but the development of two great promises made to Abraham ; 
one concerning his natural, the other concerning his spiritual 
offspring. One of these promises is — "I will make of thee a great 
nation, and will bless him that blesses thee, and curse him that 
curses thee." The other promise is — "In thee," that is, "m thy 
seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed." One family 
exhausts the first covenant, while the second unites in one com- 
munity all the faithful of all the families of the earth. The first 
promises to all its subjects, all worldly and temporal blessings ; 
the second guarantees to all its subjects, spiritual and eternal 
blessings. 

But the centre of attraction, or the principle of association in 
these two communities, differs as radically as do the blessings sti- 
pulated in each of them ; so that connection with the one commu- 
nity secures no interest in the other. ThQJlesh of Abraham is 
the centre of attraction in the one, while the faith of Abraham 
is the centre of attraction in the other. All the privileges, 
rights, interests, and immunities in the one are fleshly and tem- 
poral ; all the rights, interests, and immunities in the other are 
spiritual and eternal. A person being the son of Abraham by 
the flesh gives him no interest whatever in any of the blessings 
of a son of Abraham by faith. Neither does a Gentile's being 
a son of Abraham by faith, give him any interest whatever in 
any of the covenanted blessings of a son of Abraham by blood. 



104 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM- 

Every thing in these two institutions is consistent with their 
respective centres of attraction or principles of union. Bless- 
ings and curses, temporal and fleshly, are the rewards and 
sanctions of the one ; while blessings and curses, spiritual and 
eternal, are the rewards and the sanctions of the other. The 
ordinances attached to the first covenant are called " carnal,^' 
while those appended to the new are '^spirituaV The inhe- 
ritance of the first covenant was worldly. Its blessings were in 
the basket and in the store, in the flocks and herds, in fruitful 
seasons and abundant harvests, in oil and wine, in milk and 
honey, in victories and triumphs over their national and per- 
sonal enemies. Their tabernacle and their temple, with all that 
appertained to them — their altars and lavers, their tables and 
candlesticks, their censers and incense, their gold and their 
gems, their priests and victims, their blood and water, their oil 
and wine — their music and their dance, their trumpets and their 
cymbals, their feasts and their fasts, were all of the same sen- 
sible, fleshly, and worldly character, suited to a carnal, worldly, 
and unregenerated nation ; every citizen of which, good or bad, 
was a member of the church : for the church and the nation of 
Israel, were not only commensurate, but identically the same. 
Their suspensions were mere temporary separation from the 
public assemblies, and their great excommunication was death 
according to the law. 

Still, under that national and worldly, or politico-religious in- 
stitution, there were persons who had faith in the promised 
Messiah, and spiritual illumination ; who saw the promised 
blessings afar off, and embraced them, and walked with God. 
But they were sanctified and saved by the grace and spiritual 
provisions of another institution — the kernel that was in the 
shell of those outward symbols. For " the law was a shadow,^' 
or faint adumbration of "good things to come;" not, indeed, 
** the exact image of them," but a general outline, through which 
those " led by the Spirit" were inducted into the holy of holies 
of that sublimely allegoric representation. Still, the good and 
the bad worshipped in the same sanctuary, came up to the same 
festivals, observed all the same rites, and shared in all the 
national blessings and calamities. 

They had, indeed, legal sacrificesr, a legal repentance, and a 
legal remission of sins. The sinner came to a priest, as great a 
sinner as himself. He carried his lamb, his kid, or his calf, to 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 105 

the altar. He laid his right hand upon its head, confessed his 
sin, and killed it. The priest piled its flesh upon the altar, 
poured out or sprinkled its blood, while the fire of heaven con- 
sumed it. This done, the legal penalty only was remitted. It 
did not strengthen the heart, nor " make him perfect who did 
this service, as pertained to his conscience.^' Hence, their sins 
were again "remembered every year,'' in the annual atonements. 
And even the most faithful and believing amongst them only re- 
ceived a final and plenary remission of sins, by reason of the 
ransom then prospective " for the redemption of the transgres- 
sions" under that covenant, that they who were then called 
might with us partake in the blessing of the eternal inheritance. 

The Jewish institution, and the people under it, were alike 
carnal. "Carnal ordinances," says Paul, "were imposed on 
them until the time of reformation." They had letter and sym- 
hoi, but they had not the spirit nor the reality. They had, in- 
deed, the word addressed to the ear, and the picture to the eye ; 
but that which was spoken they neither understood nor obeyed ; 
and that which was a type they could not read, " for they could 
not see to the end or meaning of that which is now abolished.^' 
Paul, that greatest of commentators, most aptly calls it letter^ 
and type, and shadow, while with him the new covenant is ^^ spirit, 
and righteousness, and Zt/e." The letter killeth, while the spirit 
giveth life. It is also called " the ministration of condemnation," 
while the gospel is called " the ministration of righteousness." 
The former, indeed, was gloriously introduced, but much more 
gloriously the latter. 

Still, we must enter the sanctuary of the Lord through its 
own portico. The new covenant always presupposes the know- 
ledge of the old. The reader of the apostolic writings is sup- 
posed to have read or learned from Moses and the Prophets. 
The gospel presupposes the law. It was a school-master to in- 
troduce the Messiah to our acquaintance. It is all letter and 
type; but we receive the spirit through the letter, and the 
reality through the type. " The law was given by Moses, but 
the grace and the reality, or the truth, came by Jesus Christ." 

As the body to the spirit, so stood the Jewish to the Christian 
institution in many prominent points of view. As the spirit 
dwells in the body, so the gospel dwelt in the Levitical institu- 
tion. When that died, the spirit, or that indicated by all its 
ordinances, alone survived. So that while that religion sancti- 



106 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

fied to the purifying of the flesh only, the Christian sanctifies 
the spirit, and through it the soul and body. " We, therefore, 
serve in the newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the let- 
ter," " Christ is the end of the law for justification to every 
one that believeth.'^ The ritual of Moses, says Paul, "stood 
only in meats, and drinks, and divers ordinances concerning 
the flesh, imposed on the Jews until the time of reformation.'' 

We, then, serve in a " better tabernacle" than did the Jewish 
people. For their animal sacrifices, we have the slain Lamb of 
God. For their deliverance from penal temporal sufferings, 
through the blood of bulls and goats, we have "justification 
from all things" — through faith in the blood of the Messiah. 
For their legal purification by " the water of separation," we 
have the sanctification of the spirit, through faith in the blood 
of Christ, and baptism into his death. For their oil of conse- 
cration, we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, by which 
we are led into all truth and holiness. For their national adop- 
tion, we have a personal and filial adoption into the family of 
God, by which we feel that we are sons, and can say, " Our 
Father, who art in heaven." 

The doctrine of a future life, and of the immortality of man, 
constituted no part of the Jew's religion. There is not one 
promise of eternal life, not one word of the heavenly inherit- 
ance in any part of the Jewish institution. Neither is there one 
threat of any punishment after death. Indeed, neither salva- 
tion nor damnation, in the Christian sense of these terms, ever 
occurs in any portion of the writings of Moses, so far as they 
respect the Jewish nation, religion, or peculiarities. The law 
was added to an antecedent promise, as Paul affirms. So that 
the Jewish institution is to be contemplated as an episode — an 
intercalary or parenthetic dispensation.^ 

It was added to the antediluvian revelations. Enoch, the 
seventh from Adam, is one of those ancient prophets who taught 
a future life, a future condemnation of wicked men ; and in his 

* Bishop Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses, argues, from the silence 
of Moses on the subject of future rewards and punishments, that he was divinely 
inspired, inasmuch as all the founders of antecedent states and empires founded 
their empires upon that basis; or sanctioned their laws by the penalties of eternal 
rewards. But his lordship seemed not to have observed that Moses needed not 
such enactments or sanctions, inasmuch as the nation which he formed was in 
possession of that knowledge before he was born. His learned and ingenious argu< 
meuts on this main branch of his subject are regarded as a splendid sophism. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 107 

own personal translation to heaven, God gave a practical demon- 
stration of the certainty of a state of immortality for those who 
walked with God according to the rules prescribed for them. 
That such rules were given, is evident from the fact that 
where no law is, there can be neither obedience nor disobe- 
dience. 

Evident, then, it must be to all who reflect on Scripture pre- 
mises that the object of the Jewish institution was not to reveal 
life and immortality, nor to prescribe rules for the attainment 
of them. Moses and his law are better defined by Paul to the 
Hebrews. When comparing him with the character and official 
grandeur of "the Apostle and High Priest of our religion,^' 
Paul represents Moses as having lived and acted for "a testi- 
mony of the things that were to he spoken in after times,^' God 
gave the mould or pattern to Moses, and Moses cast the type. 
He gave the letter which leads us to Christ and which reveals 
Christ to us. To this the Prophets added much in after times. 
Still, Moses and his tabernacle and worship are but the patterns 
of things in the heavens — a shadow of good things, then future^ 
but now come. 

The covenant of circumcision and of the law, as administered 
by Moses, had, therefore, no special, direct, or specific relation 
to a spiritual people or a spiritual institution. Circumcision, 
though before the law, is by the Messiah himself incorporated 
with it ; because, as we have shown, that covenant was one of 
the " covenants of promise'' engrossed in the national institution 
given to the twelve tribes. The words of the Messiah are re- 
markable : ** If a person receives circumcision on the Sabbath 
day,'' (being sometimes the eighth day,) says he, "that the law 
of Moses be not broken, why thus speak of him whom the 
Father has sent into the world?" &c. 

Thus we are directed to the gospel, as a new and sublime de- 
velopment of God's philanthropy, prepared for an educated 
world. The Jews were all minors, under tutors and governors, 
until the fulness of time, when God sent forth his Son, born of 
woman, and made under the law himself, that he might redeem 
his own people from the curse of the law, and introduce a.new 
system, bringing in an everlasting redemption for us. 

The Christian institution is addressed to the understanding, the 
heart, the conscience. It first presents itself to the understand- 
ing. It works its way into the heart. It seizes the affections 



108 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

and induces men to come, not to be carried or borne by physical 
necessity to Christ. " A willing people in the day of thy power 
Bhall come to thee/' Christianity presupposes that its subjects 
shall first be taught by Moses, and then come to Christ. No 
man can come to Christ unless God induces him to come, by the 
former intimations given by Moses and the Prophets. "If 
they will not hear them," they never can, they never will come 
to Christ ; " they would not be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead.'^ 

Not so the antecedent institution. Men were by necessity 
born members of it. There was no appeal to the understanding, 
no addresses to the conscience, no motives addressed to the 
heart to win over a people to the Jewish institution. They 
were Jews, not by choice, but by necessity. They were com- 
pelled to be members of that church, just as they were compel- 
led to be born. They were, indeed, born of the flesh, and not 
of the spirit, as preparatory to admission into that church. 

No one preached to the Jews that they must be born again to 
enter into their kingdom of God. We have no regeneration in 
the law of Moses. The Jewish elect are all chosen in Abra- 
ham's flesh. Hence, there never was a missionary sent out of 
the Jewish Church to bring into it any one not born of the flesh 
of Abraham. There was no gospel in the law but for the Jews. 
Their inheritance was on earth, and their title to it was blood, 
and not faith, — natural, and not supernatural birth. Hence the 
perplexity of Nicodemus, when he heard the doctrine of the 
necessity of intelligence, and a new birth, in order to entrance 
into the new kingdom of God. 

A few proselytes from a few nations were, on their own appli- 
cation, in certain cases, admitted into that community. To 
these, certain privileges were extended ; but the genius, charac- 
ter, and aim of that institution was not catholic. It had the 
flesh of the Messiah in solemn keeping for fifteen hundred 
years — and, therefore, did only admit of a few proselytes. Its 
** proselytes of justice," or its real proselytes, (for as for those 
of " the gate," we have no authentic evidence ; they seem to be 
a modern invention,) were, on full conviction and a solemn de- 
claration of their willingness to be governed by the whole law of 
Moses, admitted to circumcision ; and so soon as healed from 
the wound inflicted in the performance of that bloody rite, they 
were plunged into a cistern of water by one single immersion ; 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 109 

and thus incorporated into the Jewish nation. So teach some 
of the Jewish Kabbis. 

Still, this provision for the benefit of a few worshippers of the 
true and only living God, in no way changes the general and 
appropriate character of that institution. Its proper subjects 
were not circumcised to make them members of the Abrahamic 
or Mosaic church, but to mark them as such ; the church and 
nation being always coextensive. There was, therefore, no ne- 
cessity whatever for any one to be born either of the spirit or of 
water, to become a member of the Jewish community, or to par- 
ticipate in its honours and privileges. 

On the contrary, Christianity is catholic in its spirit, and pro- 
selyting in its character. It contemplates a great community, 
gathered out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. It 
makes provision for them all. Jesus was born a Jew, and came 
first to his own family and church, and, to confirm the covenant 
made unto the fathers, he tendered to them of the circumcision 
the blessings of membership in his new institution. He confined 
his personal labors to his own people. He informs every man 
in Judea, by some one of the seventy heralds, that the new king- 
dom of God was soon to appear. After his death, born again 
from the dead, literally and truly regenerated, he feels no more 
the ties of Jewish blood, and sends his twelve illustrious heralds 
into all the nations of the earth, to gather out of them a people 
for his name. He begins with the Jews, proceeds to the Sama- 
ritans, and thence to all the nations of the earth. He founds a 
new kingdom under a large commission. He sends them into 
the whole world, and commands them to convert all nations. 
He establishes the doctrine of personal liberty, of freedom of 
choice, and of personal responsibility, by commanding every 
man to judge, reason, and act for himself. " Preach the gos- 
peP' to the whole human race — " to every creature,'^ is his be- 
nevolent precept. This is truly a catholic spirit, and worthy of 
all admiration. 

There are now no more fleshly or family distinctions. There 
are now no hereditary rights and honours as respects access to the 
person of the Messiah. There is no natural relation to him that 
gives any sort of claim, right, or privilege spiritual. Parents 
and children are now alike to act for themselves. It is he, and 
only he, " who believes and is baptized, that shall be saved.'' 
In the Lord's kingdom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, Barba- 

10 



110 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

rian nor Scythian, bond nor free. Indeed, there is neither male 
nor female, parent nor child, under his administration. Intelli- 
gence and candour, faith and obedience, are supposed to be pos- 
sessed by every member of Christ's kingdom. There are not 
two classes of church members in Christ's church, any more 
than there are not two sorts of citizens in the United States. 
There are no patricians nor plebeians, no feudal barons nor 
feudal serfs, amongst all the faithful in Christ Jesus. All are 
one in rank and privilege in Christ's kingdom. It is not flesh, 
but spirit, that characterizes Christian membership. The Har- 
binger anciently preached, when preparing a people for the 
Lord, " Think not to say that you have Abraham for your 
father.'' No hereditary privileges now. " Eepent, every one of 
you, and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance." 

The Christian church is the only perfect cradle of human 
liberty, as it is the only proper school of equal rights and immu- 
nities on earth. It commands every man to think, speak, and 
act for himself. It asks not even a parent to stand or fall for 
his child. It knows no sponsorship, no godfather, nor god- 
mother. It asks no father to make a profession for his child. 
It commands him to " bring up his children in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord." It guaranties freedom of thought, of 
speech, and of action, to every citizen under the Messiah's reign — 
provided only, he speaks and acts as the oracles of God require. 
The great doctrine of a personal accountability is made the 
foundation of personal liberty. It teaches that every man shall 
give an account of himself to God. And as there shall be no 
proxies in the future and eternal judgment, so there must be 
none in Christ's kingdom on earth. From these sublime facts 
spring all rational liberty of thought and action on the greatest 
choice which man can make : whom he shall acknowledge, love, 
and serve as his God, and in what way and manner he shall 
best serve him. 

Both Joshuas — ^he that led the twelve tribes of Israel into 
Canaan, and our Joshua, "the great Captain of Salvation," 
** who leads many sons to glory," say, *' Choose you this day 
whom you shall serve." ** If the Lord be God, serve him ; but 
if Baal be god, serve him." Previous examination of the pre- 
tensions of the candidates for our suffrage is presupposed. No 
one can choose without consideration and comparison. Hence 
infants cannot choose whom they should serve, and whose name 



ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. Ill 

shall be stamped upon them, because they cannot consider and 
compare rival candidates. 

But were not the babes of Israel circumcised; and did not 
that bind them to the religion of their fathers ? Circumcision 
bound no man morally or religiously. It was merely the sign 
of a covenant between God and Abraham. The persons whom 
Joshua commanded to make a choice had all been circumcised. 
The female infants uncircumcised were neither more bound nor 
more free in moral and religious obligation than the circum- 
cised male infants. If one infant is bound by circumcision or 
baptism to the religion of its father, then all are ; for these rites 
are of the same significance and of the same obligation to all. 
Indeed, no Jew ever supposed that his circumcision morally 
obliged him : for without one single demur of this kind, not 
only Joshua commanded the circumcised to choose, but so did 
the Messiah and the twelve Apostles command all whom they 
addressed to choose whom they should serve, and in what man- 
ner they should serve him. Hence myriads of circumcised 
Jews in the age of the Apostles renounced Judaism and em- 
braced Christianity, circumcision to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. 

We have said that " circumcision'^ means the same thing to 
every circumcised person of the same class. To Ishmael, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Esau, it means just the same thing. So does every 
ordinance to all the subjects of it. If Jesus commands infants 
to be baptized, it morally or politically obliges them all to the 
same course of action. If it binds one to the religion of his pa- 
rents, it binds all ; and then it is in every case a barrier inter- 
posed between God and human liberty of choice ; — every bap- 
tized infant is bound to follow the religious belief and profession 
of his parent or godfather without consideration, comparison, 
or choice. According to this view of the subject, Martin Lu- 
ther and John Calvin morally offended God in becoming Pro- 
testants. The Jew as well as the Mussulman sins in becoming 
a Christian. The Churchman and the Presbyterian sins against 
God in becoming a Baptist, a Methodist, or a Moravian. If God 
has given this power to parents, and if children are thus obliged 
by parental vows for them, then is it not preposterous ever after 
to teach them to think, to reason, and to act for themselves in 
any moral concern, if in the greatest of all concerns they are 



112 ANTECEDENTS OF BAPTISM. 

compelled by divine authority to be thus servile and obsequious 
to the vrill of another ? 

No religion preached on earth is so favourable to human li- 
berty as the Christian. Indeed, it prescribes the only rational 
foundation of liberty ever submitted to the human understand- 
ing. This it does by making every man's destiny for ever de- 
pend upon his own choice. If he must be judged for himself, he 
must think and choose for himself — is as sound logic, as sound 
theology, as were ever preached. His father cannot act for him 
unless he be judged for him. No Pedobaptist has, therefore, 
fully abjured popery. He carries a pope in his bosom, so long 
as he will vow for his child, and then by the force of that 
vow teach his son that he is obliged to join his father's church, 
because in that church he was sealed, signed, and delivered 
by the divine warrant of infant baptism. 

There is, then, a doctrine of liberty and necessity in the 
American church as respects church membership and religious 
charters, as well as in the schools of moral philosophy. This 
new species of ecclesiastical fatalism is not confined to Calvin- 
ists, but extends into the bosom of the Arminian churches. 
They all, more or less, and sometimes while disavowing it, im- 
pose their solemn rites upon their infant offspring, by dedicating 
them to God ; and that in connection with certain ecclesiastic 
formulas of faith and manners. They say, " Only dedicate them 
to God." Only dedicate them ! I This is still worse. Dedicate 
them as a thing, a chattel, or a person I Such dedication is not 
named in the Bible nor in the oracles of Christian reason and 
faith.* I have sometimes listened, not with admiration of the 
wisdom, but with astonishment at the weakness, of some of our 
hoary doctors, descanting upon the great advantages of infant 
dedication. Strange, thought I, that neither Moses nor the 
Prophets, neither Christ nor his Apostles, ever spoke one word 
in commendation of dedicating a person to the Lord, infant or 
adult. To dedicate a thing is, indeed, intelligible ; because it 
has no soul in it to dedicate itself — but to speak of dedicating 

* Persons having hearts consecrated to the Lord, may, by the people, be set 
apart or consecrated to certain services, in strict propriety of speech. And in 
another sense, typical and fleshly persons and things were dedicated under the 
law, to serve according to the letter, where spirituality was not required. But to 
dedicate to a spiritual service those not having a spiritual mind, is without law 
and without example. 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 113 

any thing with a soul in it to the spiritual service of the Lord, 
as it appears to me, shocks all common sense. On this subject, 
as well as some others, our theological dictionaries and *' Ency- 
clopedias of Religious Knowledge'' are at fault. They can 
quote no passage in which a person is dedicated to any service — 
not even consecrated, or set apart, unless possessing a spiritual 
inind.* 

To dedicate infants to the Lord is, therefore, wholly a papisti- 
cal notion, a delusion of the imagination, an article of spiritual 
traffic by those who deal in the wares and merchandise of the 
great ecclesiastic emporium, "spiritually called Babylon and 
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.^' It is an ingenious 
contrivance to rob them of a property, a right of the value of 
which they can form no correct estimate, and for which the 
whole world would be no equivalent. I sincerely pity the youth 
who has thus been piously wronged of one of the dearest rights 
and noblest privileges ever guaranteed to man. Enslaved he is 
to a set of opinions thus imposed upon him, under pretence of 
a divine authority, being told that vows undertaken and made 
for him must be assumed by himself, for that he is under cove- 
nant to keep them. 

The Jew was, by what some call fate, obliged to be a Jew. 
He had no choice as to the covenant under which he should live, 
and whose sign he should wear deeply inscribed upon his flesh. 
But under the Christian institution every one is called upon to 
choose his own master and his own associates. Perfect liberty 
is extended to all, requiring from all deliberation, examination, 
and decision. " Whosoever willeth, let him come and drink of 
the water of life freely .'' 

The New or Christian Institution is the full development of 
the divine philanthropy. It is not a Hebrew, Greek, or Roman 
Catholic institution, but simply a catholic institution. It is not 
the starlight, the moonlight, the twilight, but the sunlight deve- 
lopment of the divine philanthropy. Its promises are free and 
ample, and rich in the choicest blessings which God can bestow 



* Hannah, it is alleged, dedicated her son to the Lord. Neither by circum- 
cision nor by baptism ! She asked, in prayer, for a son, and vowed to give liim 
to the Lord, if he would hear her prayer. The Lord gave her a son, and she 
kept her vow. When weaned, she returned him to the Lord — took him to the house 
of the Lord at Shiloh, and left him there to be educated. Is this the dedication 
of those who plead for infant baptism I If not, why pervert it to such a use 1 

10* 



114 ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 

upon man as he now is. It addresses man as he is — an animal, 
intellectual, and moral being in ruins ; and for no other purpose 
but to make him what he ought to be. In contrast with every 
system in the universe, it is purely a spiritual system. It begins 
with the heart of man. It transcribes the will of God, expressed 
in the law of righteousness and holiness, upon the table of the 
human heart. God, in this New Institution, gives this law not 
into the hand of a mediator, and then into the hands of the peo- 
ple ; but he gives them into the hearts of all the covenantees. 
He makes them all spiritually intelligent. Not a citizen in his 
kingdom can be found ignorant of the Lord. They "know him 
from the least to the greatest.'^ They are an enlightened and 
spiritual people. Of such a people "he is not ashamed to be 
called their God.'^ He makes them his people — he becomes their 
God, and declares that he will remember "their sins and their 
iniquities no more.'' Beyond these blessings, man can ask for 
nothing more in order to spiritual happiness. As an animal 
being, he may for a time need food and raiment. But these are 
guaranteed to him on certain conditions. If he ask for them 
and work for them, God has promised them. And as for the 
future, the infinite and eternal future, the universe is his. He 
will obtain the freedom of the eternal city. The " things to 
come" are all his. Such is the inheritance attached to the new 
institution. It is, indeed, beyond the river Jordan. But, while 
in the wilderness of sin, he may eat the mystic manna, drink 
of the spiritual rock, and walk by the guidance of the cloud, 
illumined by the Spirit of God, till he behold the " clearer light 
of an eternal day." 

The provisions of this institution, so ample, so rich, and so en- 
during, have cost a very great price, and call for a very thorough 
renunciation of oneself on the part of all who would partake of 
its blessings. Hence its conditions are in harmony with the 
liberality of its provisions and the dignity of its Author. It can- 
not be merited, but must be received as a perfect gratuity. The 
conditions, then, are not the conditions of a purchase, but of a 
free donation. God bestows its blessings in a way the most 
blissful to the recipient. He simply requires a surrender of 
his own will, and a consecration of his person to the glory of 
his God and his Redeemer. He is bought with a price of such 
inconceivable value as to make it his duty and honour to give 
himself away for ever to Ilim that ransomed him. But that 



ANTECEDENTS OP BAPTISM. 115 

very surrender is made the unwasting spring of eternal consola- 
^*gn and bliss to him. He drinks more liberal draughts of con- 
^jqJjou from the conditions of pardon and salvation than if he 
hims&x^^® bought it himself. For when God asks him to give 
that he W'J *o ^^^i G^od gives himself to him in every way 

Truly thiPJ^y ^i^i now and for ever. 
Moses, truly tl gracious institution. If the law was given by 
Christ. Man ble^-ce and the reality have come to us by Jesus 
gospel. Faith, repePot himself, but is blessed in obeying the 
as the media of comnRe, and baptism are, therefore, selected 
man in entering into covefition of all spiritual blessedness to 

The world called Christiari^ith. God. 
things are essential to the Chris'iOng since decided that three 
must believe, and repent, and be bapofession ; — ^that a person 
into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, cad, before he can enter 
living God, the pillar and the support of tthe church of the 
stitution of the Christian church, it seems, ith." The con- 
Hence the Acts of the Apostles, as reported by^es all this, 
this as the universal law for Jew, Samaritan, or b. develop 
one exception in Jerusalem, Samaria, or to the uttermc Not 
of the earth. The order was. Hear, believe, repent, and btrts 
tized, every one of you. Five things were essential to conv. 
Bion : — preaching, hearing, believing, repenting, and being baptized. 
The Apostles preached, the people heard, then believed, then 
repented, then were baptized, and then went on their way re- 
joicing in the remission of their sins, the reception of the Holy 
Spirit, and the hope of eternal life. 

The nice connection anrl in+inna+A deiienrlATieG of these items 
will now call for clear and ample development. Faith, repent- 
ance unto life, the covenants of promise, and the ne^ institution, 
being now introduced to the consideration of the attentive reader, 
we shaU next furnish a few chapters on Christian baptise 



BOOK SECOND. 
Action of iSapti^m. 

The Proposition, -^Immersion in water inP *^^ ^^^^ ^/ ^^ ^^" 
ther, and of the Bon, and of {he Holy h^^^^^ *** ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ 
Christian Baptism, 

CH^TER I. 

BAPTO. 

Argitment 1. — Bapto, the root of Baptizoy whence the adopted words 
baptize and baptism, like all other radical words denoting specific ac- 
tion, never loses its specific sense in its derivatives. 

In the commission which the Messiah gave to his Apostles for 
converting the nations, he commanded three things to be done, 
indicated by three very distinct and intelligible terms, viz. ma- 
iheteusate, baptizontes, didaskontes. Unfortunately one of these 
three Greek words has become a subject of much controversy. 
While all agree that the first term may be literally and properly 
rendered make disciples, and the last teaching them, the second, 
not being translated but transferred into our language, is by 
tfome u-adf^vai^r^f^d to medin sprinkling ; hj others, pouring ; by a 
third class, immor-^^o^^ . or^a -hy «x foT^rth class, purifying them 
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit. 

y^j^t^-aately, the meaning of any word, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 

"and hpfn ■ '^ ^^^^^*^^^' ^«t of opinion, but a question of fact; 

comneZ? t ^ ^'"^ ^""^'^^^^ ^^ ^^^*' ^* ^^ *^ ^^ ascertained by 

Sr™ ofT'''' "' ^^ ^ ^^^^^^^* ^^^^^*i^^ ^f particular 

art i?:;t rfT: ^' ^?' 'f ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^-^^ 

UDon a .nZ f i examination of particular occurrences— 
^C-mear^^ ^^ ^^^^-^^ instances-and convey 

WlcTo^^7^l5 \^ord a. .^^ gw.n period of its history. 
116 ' -^^-h Jesn. OiuiBt coxnmanded to be done 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 117 

in the word haptizo, is to be ascertained just in the same man- 
ner as the action enjoined in matheteuo, or that commanded in 
didasko, its associates in the commission. We ask no other law 
or tribunal for ascertaining the meaning of haptizo than for as- 
certaining the sense of matJieteuo or didasko. They are all to 
be determined philologically, as all other foreign and ancient 
terms, by the well-established canons of interpretation. From 
a candid, judicious, and impartial application of these laws, 
there is not the least difficulty in the case. 

There is, indeed, less difficulty in ascertaining the meaning 
of the word haptizo than that of either of the other words stand- 
ing with it in the commission ; because, a word more restricted, 
more circumscribed, and appropriated in its acceptation than 
either of its companions ; because, moreover, it is a word of 
specification, and not so general and undefined as matJietaio or 
didasko — ** making disciples" and "teaching them." It indi- 
cates an outward and formal action into the awful name of the 
whole Divinity ; and consequently, d priori, we would be led to 
regard it as a most specific and well-defined term. The action 
was to be performed by one person upon another person, and in 
the most solemn manner. 

Besides, it is a peculiar and positive ordinance. All admit 
that baptism is a positive ordinance ; and that positive precepts, 
as contradistinguished from moral precepts, indicate the special 
will of a sovereign in some exact and well-defined action, the 
nature, form, and necessity of which arise not from our own ^ 
priori reasonings about utility or expediency, but from the 
clearly-expressed will of the lawgiver. It is farther universally 
agreed that circumcision was a positive and not a moral institu- 
tion, made right and obligatory by the mere force of a positive 
law. It enjoined a specific act upon a specific subject, called for 
exact obedience, and was therefore definitely set forth by a spe- 
cific and not by a generic term. This fact will not, I presume, 
be disputed. Baptism, then, like circumcision, must have the 
specific action to be performed, implied, and expressed in it. 
That baptism is such a term, if it be disputed, the sequel will, 
we presume, abundantly prove. 

Meantime, before hearing the witnesses or submitting the in- 
duction, it may not be uninteresting to pursue this analogy a 
little farther, and to show, ci priori, that such a specific precept 
or term is to be expected. 



118 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

Will it not be conceded by all, that whatever good reason can 
be given why, not a general, but a specific word was chosen by 
God, in commanding circumcision to Abraham and his posterity, 
demands a term as specific and intelligible from the Christian 
Lawgiver in reference to the institution of baptism ? Now, as 
. Jesus Christ must have intended some particular action to be 
performed by his ministers, and submitted to by the people, in 
the command to baptize them, it follows that he did select such 
a word, or that he could not or would not do it. This is a tri- 
lemma from which escape is not easy. If any one say he could 
not, then either the language which he spoke, or his knowledge 
of it was defective. If the former, then the language was unfit 
to be the vehicle of a divine revelation to man ; if the latter, 
his divine character and mission are directly assailed and dis- 
honoured: or if any one say he could have done it, but would 
not, he impeaches either his sincerity or benevolence, or both ; 
his sincerity, in demanding obedience in a particular case, for 
which he cared nothing; his benevolence, in exacting a parti- 
cular service in an ambiguous and unintelligible term, which 
should perplex and confound his conscientious friends and fol- 
lowers in all the ages of the world ! Follows it not, then, that 
he couldf that he would, find such a word, and that he has done 
it — and that baptizo is that specific word? 

Before summoning our most authoritative witnesses to the 
meaning of this important word baptizo, I shall assert a few 
facts, which, I presume, will not be denied by any one properly 
acquainted with the original language of the New Testament : — 

1. Baptizo is not a radical, but a derivative word. 

2. Its root, baptOf is never applied to this ordinance. 

3. In the common version, bapto is translated, both in its sim- 
ple and compound form, always by the word dip, 

4. Baptizo is never translated by dye, stain, or colour. 

5. Baptizo, with its derivatives, is the only word used in the 
New Testament to indicate this ordinance. And, 

6. The word baptize has no necessary connection with water, 
or any liquid whatever. 

Now, from these indisputable facts, as hereafter to be de- 
veloped, some important corollaries are deduced ; such as — 

1st. Baptizo indicates a specific action, and, consequently, as 
such, can have but one meaning. For if a person or thing can 
be immersed in water, oil, milk, honey, sand, earth, debt, grief, 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 119 

affliction, spirit, light, or darkness, &c., it is a word indicating 
specific action, and specific action only. 

Baptizo, confessedly a derivative from hapto, derives its spe- 
cific meaning, as well as its radical and immutable form, from 
that word. According to the usage of all languages, ancient 
and modern, derivative words legally inherit the specific, though 
not necessarily the figurative, meaning of their natural progeni- 
tors ; and never can so far alienate from themselves that pecu- 
liar significance as to indicate any action specifically difierent 
from that intimated in the parent stock. Indeed, all the 
flexions of words, with their sometimes numerous and various 
families of descendants, are but modifications of one and the 
same generic or specific idea. 

We sometimes say that words generally have both a proper 
and a figurative sense. I presume we may go farther, and 
affirm that every word in current use has a strictly proper and a 
figurative acceptation. Now, in the derivation direct, (for there is 
a direct and there is an indirect derivation,) the proper and natural 
or original meaning of the term is uniformly transmitted. Let 
us, for example, take the Saxon word dip, through all its flexions 
and derivatives. Its flexions are dip, dips, dippeth, dipped, dip- 
ping: from these are derived but a few words, such as the nouns 
dipping, dipper, dip-chick, dipping-needle. Now, in all the flexions 
and derivatives of this word, is not the root dip always found in 
sense as well as in form ? WJierever the radical sellable is found 
the radical idea is in it. So of the word sprinkle: its flexions are 
sprinkle, sprinkleth, sprinkling, sprinkled ; and its derivatives 
are the nouns sprinkling and sprinkler. Does not the idea re- 
presented in the radical word sprinkle descend through the 
whole family ? We shall visit a larger family. From the verb 
read, whose flexions are reads, readeth, reading, come the de- 
scendants reading, (the noun,) readable, readableness, readably, 
reader, readership. The radical syllable is not more obvious 
than the uniformity of its sense throughout the whole lineage. 
Let us now advance to the two Greek representatives of the 
verbs dip and sprinkle. These are ancient families and much 
larger than any of the modern. Bapto, the root, has some seven 
hundred flexions, besides numerous derivatives. We shall only 
take the indicative mood through one tense and through one 
person — hapto, ehapton, bapso, ebapsa, ebaphon, bapho, bebapha^ 
ebebaphein. Its derivatives are baptizo^ emd its regular flexions 



120 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

more than seven hundred, including all its forms of mood, tense, 
participle, person, number, gender, case ; from which spring 
baptismoSy hapiisma, hapiisis, haptistees, haptomai, haptisomai, 
baptos, baptisteerioriy baphay bapliikos, bapTieis, These, through 
their some two thousand flexions and modifications, retain the 
bap and as uniformly the dip represented by it. The same holds 
good of its distant neighbour raino, I sprinkle. It has many 
flexions and nearly as many derivatives as bapto. It has raino, 
rainomaif rantizo, rantismos, Tantisma, ranteer, rantis, rantos, 
with their some two thousand flexions. These all exhibit- the 
radical syllable rain or ran, and with it the radical sprinkle. 
Now, as it is philologically impossible to find bap in rain, or 
rain in bap, so impossible is it to find dip in sprinkle, or sprinkle 
in dip. Hence the utter impossibility of either of these words 
representing both actions. It is difficult to conceive how any 
man of letters and proper reflection can for a moment suppose 
that bapto can ever mean sprinkle, or raino dip. 

This my first argument^ is, I own, a work of supererogation, 
inasmuch as all admit that baptizo, and not bapio, is the word 
that the Messiah chose, to represent the action he intended, 
called baptism ; and all the learned admit that its primary, pro- 
per, and unfigurative meaning is to dip. Hence, if all that I 
have said on flexion and derivation were grammatically false 
and philologically heterodox, as well as illogical, my cause loses 
nothing. I feel so rich in resources that I can give this and 
many such arguments for nothing, and still have much more 
than a competency for life. But be it all strictly and philologi- 
cally true and solid, as I unhesitatingly affirm it, this single ar- 
gument establishes my first proposition without farther effort. 
For, as all allow that dip is the primary and proper meaning of 
bapto, and colour, stain, dye, and wet, its figurative or secondary 
meanings ; and as all admit that baptizo is the word that the 
Christian Lawgiver consecrated to indicate this ordinance ; and 
as it is incontrovertibly derived from bapto, and therefore inhe- 
rits the proper meaning of the bap, which is dip, then is it not 
irresistibly evident that baptizo can never authorize or sanction 
any other action than dipping or immersion, as found in Christ's 
commission 1 Such is my first argument, which, if false, I lose 
nothing ; which, if true, my proposition is already established. 

But we must have arguments and illustrations for the un- 
learned as well as for the learned. Before we advance to our 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 121 

second argument, founded on baptizo itself, I shall, in three 
English words, selected at random, show that neither num- 
ber nor variety of derivatives from a common stock, can ever 
nullify the original idea or action suggested. I take a verb, 
a noun, and a preposition, with their whole families. I open at 
the verb adduce — duce from ducOy I lead, is the root. The family 
lineage is abduce, adduce, conduce, deduce, educe, induce, in- 
troduce, obduce, produce, reduce, seduce, traduce, circumduc- 
tion, deduction, induction. Next comes the noun guard, from 
which the verb guard, guarding, guarded, guarder, guardedly, 
guardedness, guardship, guardable, guardful, guardage, guard- 
ance, guardiant, guardian, guardianess, guardianship, guardian- 
age, guardless. And finally we open at the preposition up, 
whence spring upon, upper, uppermost, upperest, upward. Now, 
can any one for a moment doubt that in these three examples, 
the radical syllables du^e, guard, and up, retain the same sense, 
whatever it may be, generic or specific, through every branch 
of their respective families. 

Ancient Greek grammarians sometimes arranged their verbs 
in the form of trees, making the origin of the family the root ; 
the next of importance, the trunk; the next, the larger branches ; 
and so on to the topmost twig. In this way both flexion and 
derivation were occasionally exhibited. This fact I state be- 
cause it suggests to me a new form of presenting this, my first 
argument, to the apprehension of all my readers. A great ma- 
jority of our citizens are better read in forests, fields, and gar- 
dens, than in the schools of philology or ancient languages. 
Agriculturists, horticulturists, botanists will fully comprehend 
me when I say, in all the dominions of vegetable nature un- 
touched by human art, as is the root so is the stem, and so are 
all the branches. If the root be oak, the stem cannot be ash, 
nor the branches cedar. What would you think, courteous 
reader, of the sanity or veracity of the backwoodsman, who 
would affirm that he found in a state of nature a tree whose ' 
root was oak, whose stem was cherry, whose boughs were pear, 
and whose leaves were chestnut. If these grammarians or phi- 
lologists have been happy in their analogies drawn from the 
root and branches of trees, to illustrate the derivation of words, 
how singularly fantastic the genius that creates a philological 
tree whose root is bapto, whose stem is cheo, whose branches 
are rantizo, whose fruit is katharizo; or, if not too ludicrous, 

11 



122 ACTION OP BAPTISM. ' 

and preposterous for English ears, whose root is dip, whose 
trunk is jpour^ whose branches are sprinkle^ and whose fruit is 
purification! * 

My first argument, then, is founded on the root hapto, whose 
proper signification all learned men say is dip, and whose main 
derivative is haptizo — ^which, by all the laws of philology and 
all the analogies of nature, never can, never did, and never will 
signify either to pour or sprinkle. 



CHAPTER II. 

BAPTIZO. 



Argument 2. — Oreeh lexicographers, with one consent, in their definitions, 
as well as Greek philosophers, historians, orators, and poets, in their use 
of this term baptizo, render it dip, plunge, immerse : never as indicat- 
ing sprinkling, pouring, or scattering any thing. 

I NOW proceed to haptizo itself, the word foreordained by the 
Messiah to indicate his will in this sacred ordinance. 

Meanwhile, we have not forgotten that the meaning of haptizo, 
as well as hapto, is a question of fact, to be decided by impartial 
and disinterested witnesses, whose testimony is to be fairly 
stated, candidly heard, and impartially weighed, before the case 
is finally adjudicated. 

My witnesses are so numerous that I must call them forth in 
classes, and then hear them in detail. I shall first summon the 
Greek lexicographers, the most learned and most competent 
witnesses in this case; in the world. These gentlemen are, and 
of right ought to be, inductive philosophers. Philology is the 
most inductive of all sciences. The meaning of a word is ascer- 
tained by the usage of those writers and speakers whose know- 
ledge and acquirements have made them masters of their own 
language. From this class of vouchers we have derived most 
of our knowledge of holy writ, and of all that remains of Gre- 
cian literature and science. We, indeed, try the dictionaries 
themselves by the classics, the extant authors of the language. 
We prove or disprove them by the same inductive operation by 
which we ascertain the facts of any science, mental or phy- 
sical. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 123 

I will rely exclusively upon the most ancient, the most impar- 
tial, and the most famous lexicographers. I therefore prefer 
those on my respondent's side of the question to those on my 
own, and I prefer them who lived and published before the con- 
troversy became so rife as it has been during the present cen- 
tury. 

1. "We shall first hear the venerable Scapula, a foreign lexi- 
cographer, of 1579. On hapto, the root, what does this most 
learned lexicographer depose ? Hear him : '^Bapto — mergo, im- 
mergo, item tingo (quod sit immergendo)." To translate his 
Latin — To dip, to immerse ; also, to dye, because that may he 
done by immersing. Of the passive baptomai he says, "Merger, 
item lavor— to be immersed, to be washed.'' Of Baptizo — 
" Mergo seu immergo, item submergo, item abluo, lavo — To dip, 
to immerse ; also, to submerge or overwhelm, to wash, to cleanse." 

2. Next comes the more ancient Henricus Stephanus, of 1572. 
Bapto and baptizo — " Mergo seu immergo ut quae tingendi aut 
abluendi gratia aqua immergimus — To dip or immerge; as we 
dip things for the purpose of dyeing them, or immerge them in 
water.'' He gives the proper and figurative meanings as Scapula 
gives them. 

3. "We shall next hear the Thesaurus of Eobertson. My edi- 
tion was printed at Cambridge, 1676. It is the most compre- 
h^ensive dictionary I have ever seen. It contains 80,000 words 
more than the old Schrevelius. It is, indeed, sometimes titled 
Cornelii Schrevelii Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum Copiosissime 
Adauctum, His definitions are generally regarded as the most 
precise and accurate. He defines baptizo by only two words — 
mergo and lavo — one proper and one figurative meaning — to im- 
merse, to wash. 

4. Schleusner, a name revered by orthodox theologians, and 
of enviable fame, says, (Glasgow ed. 1822,) — ** 1st. Proprie, im- 
mergo ac intingo, in aquam immergo. Properly it signifies, I 
immerse, I dip, I immerse in water. 2d. It signifies, I wash or 
cleanse by water — (quia hand raro aliquid immergi ac intingi 
in aquam solet ut lavetur) — ^because, for the most part, a thing 
must be dipped or plunged into water that it may be washed." 
Thus he gives the reason why baptizo figuratively means to wash, 
because that it is frequently the effect of immersion. 

5. After Schleusner, we shall hear the distinguished Pasor. 
My copy is the London edition of 1650. '* Bapto et baptizo — 



124 * ACTION OP BAPTISIVT. 

Mergo, immergo, tingo — quod isifc immergendOy differt a dumii 
quod est profundum petere et penitus submergi." 

Again he adds — " Comparantur afflictiones gurgitibus aqua- 
rum quibus veluti merguntur qui miseriis et calamitatibus hujua 
vitae conflictantur, ita tamen merguntur ut rursus emergant." 
All of which we translate as follows : — " To dip, to immerse, to 
dye, because it is done by immersing. It differs from dunai, 
which means to sink to the bottom and to be thoroughly sub- 
merged." 

Metaphorically, in Matthew, afflictions are compared to a flood 
of waters in which they seem to be immersed who are over- 
whelmed with the miseries and misfortunes of life ; yet only so 
overwhelmed as to emerge again. 

6. After these venerable continental authorities we shall noTy 
introduce a few English lexicographers, both general and spe- 
cial. Parkhurst's Lexicon for the New Testament deposes that 
haptizo, first and primarily, means to dip, immerse, or plunge in 
water ; but in the New Testament it occurs not strictly in this 
sense, unless so far as this is included in "to wash one's self, 
be washed, wash the hands by immersion or dipping in water.'' 
Mark vii. 4, Luke xi. 38. To immerse in water or with water, 
in token of purification from sin and from spiritual pollution ; 
figuratively, ** to be immersed or plunged into a flood or sea, as 
it were, of grievous afflictions and sufferings.'' So the Septua- 
gint and Josephus use it — Tie anomai me baptizei — Iniquity 
plunges me into terror. 

7. Next comes Mr. Donnegan, distinguished and popular in 
England and America. ^^Baptizo — to immerse repeatedly into 
a liquid, to submerge, to sink thoroughly, to saturate — metony- 
mically, to drench with wine, to dip in a vessel and draw. Bap- 
tismos — Immersion, submersion, the act of washing or bathing. 
Baptistees, (a baptist,) one who immerses, submerges. Bapiis- 
ma, an object immersed, submerged, washed, or soaked." 

8. Rev. Dr. John Jones, of England, deserves the next place, 
at least in rank. Bapto he defines, " I dip, I stain ;" and hap- 
tizo, " I plunge, I plunge in water, dip, baptize, bury, over- 
whelm." 

9. Greenfield, editor of the Comprehensive Bible, the Polu- 
micrian New Testament, &c., &c., whose reputation as a New 
Testament lexicographer is well known, says — '^ BapUzo means 
to immerse, immerge, submerge, sink." J. N, T. " To wash, 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 125 

perform ablution, cleanse, to immerse, baptize, and perform the 
rite of baptism.^^ 

10. Two Germans of distinction may be next heard. Pro- 
fessor Rost, whose reputation is equal to that of any other Ger- 
man linguist, in his standard German Greek Lexicon, simply 
defines hapto by words indicating to plunge, to immerse, to sub- 
merge. 

11. Bretshchneider, said to be the most critical lexicographer 
of the New Testament, affirms that " an entire immersion be- 
longs to the nature of baptism. This is the meaning of the 
word : for in baptizo is contained the idea of a complete immer- 
sion under water, at least so is haptisma in the New Testament.^' 

12. Bass, an English lexicographer, for the New Testament, 
gives haptizo " to dip, immerse, plunge in water ; to bathe one's 
self; to be immersed in sufferings or afflictions.'^ 

If Pickering could be regarded as a new or distinct lexico- 
grapher, we should add his testimony, as it is corroborative of 
the above. He gives baptisma "immersion, dipping, plunging; 
metaphorically, misery or calamity with which one is over- 
whelmed.'' 

13. I shall conclude this distinguished class of witnesses from 
the high school of lexicography with the testimony of Stokius, 
who has furnished us with a Greek and Hebrew clavis — one for 
the Hebrew and one for the Greek Scriptures. My edition is 
the Leipsic, of 1752. This great master of sacred literature 
says, " Generatim ac vi vocis intinctionis ac immersionis baptizo 
notionem obtinet. Speciatim proprie est immergere ac intingere 
in aquam ;" which we translate, ^'Baptizo generally, and by the 
force of the word, indicates the idea of simply dipping and dye- 
ing ; but properly it means to dip or immerse in water." He 
defines baptisma in a like manner — " It generally denotes im- 
mersion and dyeing ; but by the innate force of the term, it pro- 
perly imports immersion or dipping of a thing in water, that it 
may be washed or cleansed." And mark especially the follow- 
ing frank declaration of this distinguished theologian and 
critic : — " The word is transferred to denote the first sacrament 
of the New Testament, which they call the Sacrament of Initia- 
tion — viz. baptism. In which sacrament those to be baptized 
were anciently immersed in water, as now-a-days they are only 

sprinkled with water, that they may be washed from the pollu- 

11* 



126 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

tion of sin, obtain the remission of it, and be received into the 
covenant of grace as heirs of eternal life/' 

So depose these thirteen great masters on the native, original, 
and proper meaning of the word in debate : to whose testimony 
I might add several others, were it not that they are but a mo- 
notonous repetition of those already presented. 

But to sum up this class of evidence, and to show from the 
highest source of American theological authority that I have 
neither misquoted nor misinterpreted the verdict of this illustri- 
ous jury of thirteen unchallenged judges, Twill quote the words 
of Professor Stuart, of the Andover Theological School:-— 
** Bapto, Baptizo mean to dip, plunge, or immerge into any 
liquid. All lexicographers and critics of any note are 
AGREED IN THis.^'* He is my American apostle, standing to 
this argument as Paul stood in comparison with the original 
twelve — himself the one only Apostle to the Gentiles, though 
the thirteenth as respected the original twelve selected of and 
for the Jews. 

Before dismissing this class of witnesses, it is pertinent to my 
proposition that I state distinctly three facts : — 

1. These lexicographers were not Baptists, but Pedobaptists. 

2. Not one of them ever translated any of these terms by the 
word sprinkle, 

3. Not any one of them ever translated any of these terms by 
the word pour. Consequently, with all their prejudices, they 
could find no authority for so doing, else doubtless they would 
have done it. 

My readers will, I hope, pardon the introduction of so many 
Greek and Latin words. The occasion demands it. From the 
course pursued by our neighbouring denominations, we are com- 
pelled to lay the corner-stone of our superstructure not only deep 
in the earth, but upon a solid Greek basis. The foundation be- 
ing laid on a Grecian rock, and the wall above-ground, our la- 
bours will, we hope, be more intelligible, and consequently more 
agreeable and more interesting to us all. 

We have, then, the unanimous testimony of all the distin- 
guished lexicographers known in Europe and America, that the 
proper and everywhere current signification of baptizo, the word 
chosen by Jesus Christ in his commission to the Apostles, is to 

* Biblical Repository for 1833, page 298. 



ACTION or BAPTISM. 127 

dip, plunge, or immerse ; and that any other meaning is tropi- 
cal, rhetorical, or fanciful. This being so, then our first propo- 
sition must be undoubtedly true. But besides these, I have 
various other classes of witnesses to adduce in solemn confirma- 
tion of the testimony of this most learned, veritable, and vene- 
rable class of* men. 

But it will be asked, " On what authority are dictionaries to 
be received ?'^ It will be answered, On the suffrage of the 
learned. Again, " On what principle are the suffrages of the 
learned obtained V It is responded, On their own knowledge of 
the agreement of the definitions with the usage of the standard 
writers of the language. Then we are thrown at once upon the 
common use of those writers who are regarded as competent 
judges of their own language at the times in which they lived. 
By an examination of these, we come inductively to a proper 
understanding of any particular word. 

Happily for us, this work has been, in a good measure, done 
abeady, at least much of it has been done by Dr. Gale, of Eng- 
land ; Dr. Alexander Carson, of Ireland ; Professor Stuart, of 
Andover, and others who preceded them ; and even some of us 
have done a little at it, and can do some more. No word, in- 
deed, in the Greek language has already been more rigidly can- 
vassed and more accurately traced than haptizo, and none more 
satisfactorily established. I can only give a specimen of the 
classic, literal, and figurative usus loguendi in the case of baptiza 
and its root bapto : — 

1st. Of the proper meaning of haptizo : — 

"Lucian, in Timon, the man-hater, makes him say — *If I 
should see any one floating toward me upon the rapid torrent, 
and he should, with outstretched hands, beseech me to assist 
him, I would thrust him from me, baptizing {baptizonta) him, 
until he would rise no more.' '^ 

" Plutarch, vol. x. p. 18. * Then plunging (baptizon) himself 
into the lake Copais.' " 

" Strabo, lib. o, speaking of a lake near Agrigentum, says — 
'Things that elsewhere cannot float, do not sink {baptizesthai),' 
In lib. 12, of a certain river he says — * If one shoots an arrow 
into it, the force of the water resists it so much, that it will 
scarcely sink (baptizesthai)."' 

" Polybius, vol. iii. p. 311. ult., applies the word to soldiers pas- 
sing through water, immersed [bapiizomenoi) up to the breast. '' 

" The sinner is represented by Porphyry, p. 282, as baptized 



128 ACTION or BAPTISM. 

{baptizetai) up to his head in Styx, a celebrated river in hell. Is 
there any question about the mode of this baptism V* 

** Themistius, Orat. iv. p. 133, as quoted by Dr. Gale, says — • 
' The pilot cannot tell but he may save one in the voyage that 
had better be drowned (baptisai), sunk into the sea.^ ^' 

" The Sibylline verse concerning the city of Athens, quoted 
by Plutarch in his life of Theseus, most exactly determines the 
meaning of haptizo. Askos baptizee dunai de tpi ou themis esti." 

" Thou mayest be dipped, bladder 1 but thou art not fated 
to sink.'' 

" For our ship,'' says Josephus, " having been baptized or im- 
mersed in the midst of the Adriatic sea." 

" Speaking of the murder of Aristobulus, by command of 
Herod, he says, * The boy was sent to Jericho by night, and 
there by command having been immersed {baptizomenos) in a 
pond by the Galatians, he perished.' The same transaction is 
related in the Antiquities in these words : * Pressing him down 
always, as he was swimming, and baptizing him as in sport, 
they did not give over until they entirely drowned him.' " 

*' Homer, Od. i. 392 : As when a smith dips or plunges (baptei) 
a hatchet or huge poleaxe into cold water, viz. to harden them." 

" Pindar, Pyth. ii. 139, describes the impotent malice of his 
enemies, by representing himself to be like the cork upon a net 
in the sea, which does not sink : As when a net is cast into the 
sea, the cork swims above, so am I unplunged (abaptisios) ; on 
which the Greek scholiast, in commenting, says : * As the cork 
ou dunei, does not sink, so I am abaptisios, unplunged, 7wt im- 
mersed. The cork remains abaptistos, and swims on the. surface 
of the sea, being of a nature which is abaptistos ; in like man- 
ner I am abaptistos.' In the beginning of this explanation, the 
scholiast says : * Like a cork of the net in the sea, ou baptisomai, 
I am not plunged or sunk.' The frequent repetition of the same 
words and sentiment, in this scholium, shows, in all probability, 
that it is compiled from different annotators upon the text. But 
the sense of baptizo in all is too clear to admit of any doubt." 

" Aristotle, de Color, c. 4, says : By reason of heat and moist- ' 
ure, the colours enter into the pores of things dipped into them, 
(tou baptomenou.) De Anima, iii. c. 12: If a man dips {bapsei) 
any thing into wax, it is moved so far as it is dipped. Hist. 
Animal, viii. c. 2, speaking of certain fish, he says : They cannot 
endure great changes, such as that, in the summer time, thei/ 
should plunge [baptosi) into cold water. Ibid. c. 29, he speaks of 
giving diseased elephants water to drink, and dipping {baptontes) 
hay into honey for them." 

" Aristophanes, in his comedy of The Clouds, act i. scene 2, 
represents Socrates as gravely computing how many times the 
distance between two of its legs a flea could spring at one leap ; 
and in order to ascertain this, the philosopher first melted a 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 129 

fiiece of wax, and then taking the flea, he dipped or plunged 
enebaphes) two of its feet into it,^^ &c. 

" HeracMes Ponticus, a disciple of Aristotle, Allegor. p. 495, 
says : When a piece of iron is taken red hot from the fire, and 
plunged in the water (udati haptizetai), the heat, being quenched 
by the peculiar nature of the water, ceases/' 

" Herodotus, in Euterpe, speaking of an Egyptian who hap- 
pens to touch a swine, says : Going to the river [Nile] he dips 
himself {ebaphe eauton) with his clothes/' 

" Aratus, in his Phaenom. v. 650, speaks of the constellation 
Cepheus, as dipping [haptoon) his head or upper part into the 
sea. In v. 858, he says : If the sun dip (baptoi) himself cloud- 
less into the western flood. Again, in v. 951. If the crow has 
dipped {ebapsato) his head into the river," &c. 

"Xenophon, Anab. ii. 2, 4, describes the Greeks and their 
enemies as sacrificing a goat, a bull, a wolf, and a ram, and 
dipping [baptontes) into a shield [filled with their blood], the 
Greeks the sword, the Barbarians a spear, in order to make a 
treaty that could not be broken." 

" Plutarch, Parall. Graec. Kom. p. 545 : speaking of the strata- 
gem of a Roman general, in order to insure victory, he says : 
He set up a trophy, on which, dipping his hand into blood (eis 
to aima — baptizas)^ he wrote this inscription, &c. In vol. vi. p. 
680 (edit. Reiske), he speaks of iron plunged [baptomenon), viz. 
into water, in order to harden it. Ibid. p. ^ZZ, plunge (bapiison) 
yourself into the sea." 

" Diodorus Siculus, edit. Heyne, iv. p. 118 : Whose ship being 
sunk or merged (baptistheises). Some other editions read baptis- 
theises, plunged into the deep, which is a good gloss." 

" Plato, De Repub. iv. p. 637, represents dyers, who wish to 
make a permanent colour, as first choosing out wool, sorting and 
working it over, and then {baptousi) they plunge it, viz. into the 
dyestuff." 

" Epictetus, iii. p. 69. ed. Schwiegh., in a fragment of his work 
says : As you would not wish, sailing in a large ship adorned and 
abounding with gold, to be sunk or immerged {baptizesthai), so,"&c. 

" Hippocrates, p. 532, edit. Basil : Shall I not laugh at the 
man who sinks (baptisonta) his ship by overloading it, and then 
complains of the sea for ingulfing it with its cargo ? On page 
50, to dip (baptein) the probes in some emollient. Page 51, dip^ 
ping (bapsasa) the rag in ointment, &c. Page 104, cakes dipped 
(embaptomenoi) into sour wine. Page 145, dipping {baptoon) 
sponges in warm water. And in the same way in all parts of 
his book, in instances almost without number." 

" Heraclides, Allegor., says. When a piece of iron is taken red- 
hot from the fire and plunged (baptizetai) into water." 

" Heliodorus, vi. 4. When midnight had plunged (ebaptizon) 
the city in sleep." 



130 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 



riGURATIVE USE. 

"Plutarch. OverwTielmed with debts [hebapUsmenon)J^ 

" Chrysostom. Overwhelmed [hajptizomenos] with innumerable 
cares/' 

" Lucian, iii. page 81. He is like one dizzy and baptized or 
sunk (hehaptismeno) — viz. into insensibility by drinking/' 

"Justin Martyr. Overwhelmed with sins {bebaptismenos) ,^' 

" Aristotle, de Mirabil. Ausc, speaks of a saying among the 
Phenicians, that there were certain places beyond the pillars of 
Hercules, which when it is ebb-tide, are not overflowed (me hapti- 
zesthai)f but at full-tide are overflowed [katakluzesthai) ; which 
word is here used as an equivalent for haptizesthaiJ' 

" Plato, Conviv. p. 176. I myself am one of those who were 
drenched or overwhelmed (bebaptismenon) yesterday, viz. with 
wine. In another place : Having overwhelmed [baptisasa) Alex- 
ander with much wine. Euthydem. p. 267, ed. Heindorf. A 
youth overwhelmed (baptizomenon), viz. with questions.'' 

" Philo Judaeus, vol. ii. p. 478. I know some, who, when 
they easily become intoxicated, before they are entirely over- 
whelmed (printeleos baptisthenai) , viz. with wine." 

" Diodorus Siculus, tom. i. p. 107. Most of the land animals 
that are intercepted by the river [Nile] perish, being over- 
whelmed [baptizomena) ; here used in the literal sense. Tom. i. 
p. 191 : The river, borne along by a more violent current, over- 
whelmed [ebaptise) many; the literal signification. Tom. i. p. 
129. And because they [the nobles] have a supply by these 
means [presents], they do not overwhelm their subjects with 
taxes." 

Many instances are given by Stuart, Carson, and others, in 
which bapto signifies to dye. It is, indeed, useless to array these, 
inasmuch as there is now no longer dispute on that subject. 
Since Messrs. Carson and Stuart's essays on this subject, it is 
agreed among the learned of all parties that bapto and baptizo 
do difier only in one point, not formerly observed by the lexi- 
cographers themselves ; and that point is, that Bapto is never 

USED TO DENOTE THE ORDINANCE OF BaPTISM, AND BaPTIZO NEVER 

SIGNIFIES TO DYE. In the radical and proper import, it is abun- 
dantly evident that they are isodunai, exactly the same as to 
signification. 

But it has been urged that bapto and baptizo have a classic 
and a sacred use — that they mean one thing in common classic 
Greek, and another in the Septuagint Old Testament, in the 
apochryphal books, and in the apostolic writings — that the syna- 
gogue and classic use is different. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 131 

As truly might they affirm that matJieteuo and didasho, the 
other terms in the commission, have two meanings — one for the 
Bible, and another for all other books ; and thus take from us at 
once the key of interpretation. I cheerfully admit the provin- 
cial and idiomatic acceptation of terms, and that sometimes 
words have some shades of meaning in the Hebrew and Greek 
Scriptures which are not common in other books : still, this ad- 
mission has much more to do with phrases and particular modes 
of expression than with ther exact meaning of words. When 
any man in debate assumes that a word means sprinkle in the 
Bible and dip in all other books, or that any term is specifi- 
cally dificrent in its acceptance there from its current use else- 
where, I demand the proof: clear, ample, and satisfactory proof. 
But, while that is withheld, I must withhold confidence in his 
judgment and respect for him as a scholar. But no one has 
yet shown that haptizo, or its root hapto, has any other specific 
meaning in the Bible than in other writings. 

I demand an induction of all the occurrences of these words 
in Holy Writ from the person who assumes that ground ; and 
also an effort from him to affix to them in any of these occur- 
rences a meaning necessarily different from their current. use. 
This, I presume, can never be done ; and, therefore, by a real 
scholar, will never be attempted. 

Baptizo is found but twice in the Old Testament. The first 
of these, says Mr. Stuart, means to immerse, dip, or plunge. 
1 Kings V. 14: " Naaman plunged himself seven times into the 
Jordan.'^ This was the way that he obeyed the precept, "Go 
wash {lousai) thyself seven times in the Jordan.^' 

The second means figuratively to overwhelm. " My iniquity 
overwhelms me,'^ (me baptizei.) Isa. xxi. 4. No exception as 

yet. 

It is found but twice in the apochryphal books of the Old Tes- 
tament. Of Judith, chap. xii. 5, it is said, "she went out by 
night and washed (ebaptizeio) herself in the camp at the fountain 
of water .^^ In Sirach, xxxi. 25, there occurs the expression 
baptizo menos apo neJcroon. He who is cleansed from a dead 
carcase and toucheth it again, what doth he profit by his wash- 
ing ? too loutree autou. According to the law. Numbers xix. 19, 
the unclean was never cleansed until he bathed himself in 
water. These instances, therefore, constitute no exception from 
the established meaning of the word in classic and common use. 



132 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

■ Professor Stuart gives all the places where hapto is found in 
the Septuagint. Bapto is found in Lev. iv. 6 ; ix. ; xiv. 6 ; xiv. 
61 ; xi. 32, translated dip smd plunge. In Num. xix. 18 ; Deut. 
xxxiii. 24 ; Josh. iii. 15 ; Kuth ii. 14 ; 1 Sam. iv. 27 ; 2 Kings 
viii. 15 ; Job ix. 31 ; Ps. Ixviii. 23. In these passages it is, with 
the exception of once plunge, always dip; and amongst the 
plunged and dipped are vessels, mattrasses, and persons. 

Bapto is used to indicate "to smear or moisten by dipping,^' 
says Professor Stuart, three times : Lev. iv. 47 ; xiv. 16 ; Ex. 
xii. 22. It once signifies to tinge or colour, Ezek. xxiii. 15 — 
iiarai baptai — coloured turbans. The text is, however, doubtful. 
It is found translated wet or moisten, twice ; Dan. iv. 30, and 
V. 21. **His body was moistened, or wet, with the dew of 
heaven.'^ 

Of nineteen occurrences of bapto in the Old Testament, it is 
once translated colour, twice wet, twice plunge, and fourteen 
times dip. The only question remaining, is. How is baptizo 
translated in the New Testament, in which it is found eighty 
times ? 

Bapto, with its compound embapto, is found six times in the 
New Testament ; baptizo is found eighty times ; baptismos, four 
times ; baptisma, twenty-two times ; and baptistees, fourteen 
times ; in all one hundred and twenty-six times. In the com- 
mon version, bapto and embapto are always translated dip; bap- 
tizo is twice translated wash ; baptismos is three times translated 
washing ; baptisma and baptistees are never translated, but trans- 
ferred — the former into baptism, and the latter into baptist. 
They are never translated by any of the words sprinkle, pour, or 
purify. Why this family of five distinguished members, occur- 
ring one hundred and twenty-six times in one small volume, 
should, in two of its members, occurring jointly thirty-six times, 
never be translated at all ; and why the main branch, baptizo 
itself, consecrated by the commission to a most important pur- 
pose, should, in eighty times, have been translated only twice, 
and then by a term so vague as wash; and baptismos three 
times by washing, — is a very curious problem left for future dis- 
cussion and development. 

Meantime, from the induction, both sacred and classical, now 
given, — and of the classical but a specimen of what is available 
has been given, — may we not, without farther argument, satis- 
factorily conclude that the lexicographers whose testimony we 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 133 

have heard had, from the iisus loquendi — ^the well-established 
law of public usage — ample authority for the uniform translar 
tion of these words in their proper, original, and primitive sense, 
by the terms plunge, dip, or immerse, which they have so unani- 
mously and so decidedly given them in all their statements ? 

It is with the proper and unfigurative, and not with the fanci- 
ful and rhetorical meaning of words, we have to do in all posi- 
tive institutions. Sir William Blackstone has truly said, (and 
who is higher authority than he ?) — " The words of a law are 
generally to be understood in their usual and most known sig- 
nification ; not so much regarding the propriety of grammar, 
as their general and popular use : but when words bear either 
none or a very absurd signification, if literally understood, we 
must a little deviate from the received sense of them/'"^ Bishop 
Taylor has also well said, " In all things where the precept is 
given in the proper style of laws, he that takes the first sense is 
the likeliest to be well guided. In the interpretation of the 
laws of Christ, the strict sense is to be followed.^^ Dr. Jona- 
than Edwards, the greatest of American Presbyterian theolo- 
gians, has truly said, "In words capable of two senses, the 
natural and proper is the primary ; and, therefore, ought, in the 
first place and chiefly, to be regarded.^' A greater still, Vitringa, 
has said, "This is accounted by all a constant and undoubted 
rule of approved interpretation, that the ordinary and most 
usual signification of words must not be deserted, except for 
sufficient reasons.'' To similar effect declare Sherlock, Water- 
land, Owen, and Dr. Gumming, as quoted in Booth's Defence of 
his Pedobaptism Examined, vol. 3, London, 1792, p. 253-256. 

Before dismissing this subject, we must yet hear Turretine, 
the systematic standard theologian of the orthodox schools of 
Presbyterianism. His words, fairly translated are, "It is ac- 
knowledged by all that we should never depart from the proper 
and native signification of words, except for the weightiest and 
most urgent reasons."! We shall conclude with Dr. Benson, 
another favourite : — "What can be more absurd than to imagine 
that the doctrines or rules of practice which relate to men's 
everlasting salvation should be delivered in such ambiguous 
terms as to be capable of many meanings?" J Well does the 



* Com. vol. i. sec. 2. f De Satisfactione Christi, part 1, sec. 23. 

X Hist. Bapt., Robertson, p. 36. 

12 



134 ACTION OP BAP/riSM. 

English Pirie say, "Law," and as fully developed in chapter 
III. of this work, " requires words and phrases of the most 
ascertained and unequivocal sense." 

If seven such names as are here given are not valid authority 
on the proper interpretation of laws and positive institutions, 
to whom shall we hearken ? Their testimony being admitted, 
and the plain and unanimous testimony of the lexicographical 
jury above given, on the proper, current, and popular use and 
meaning of haptizo, can any one show reason why we should 
not, a second time, regard my first proposition as fully proved ? 
All the dictionaries give dip or immerse as the proper, common, 
and current use of hapiizo; and all our quotations from some 
thirty of the most classic authors, as well as from the canonical 
Greek Scriptures of the Old Testament, sustain them in so doing. 
And that the proper, common, and current use of words is to be 
always preferred and adopted in the interpretation of laws and 
ordinances, is attested by a host of witnesses of the highest au- 
thority, and sustained by Horn and Ernesti in their canons of 
interpretation. I repeat : must we not, then, conclude that im- 
mersion, and immersion only, is Christian baptism, according to 
the mind and will of our Lawgiver and Judge ? 



CHAPTER III. 

ANCIENT VERSIONS. 



Argument 3. — Not one of the ancient versions uses a word indicative 
of sprinkling or pouring water on a person, in order to his Christian 
baptism j but all concur in the choice of a term intimating immersion, 
dipping, or plunging a person, if any allusion be made to the form of 
the action. 

Every class of witnesses summoned with reference to the pro- 
position before us is regarded as a new argument. Indeed, in 
strict propriety, every single witness is a distinct argument; 
but we do not so count them in this discussion. We summon 
witnesses in classes to prove certain subordinate propositions, 
which, when proved, make full and perfect arguments in sup- 
port of the grand proposition touching the action of baptism. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 135 

But, when offering a new argument, or summoning a new class 
of witnesses, I desire it to be clearly understood that it is not to 
fortify a previous argument, or to corroborate witnesses already 
adduced. "We regard every single argument offered as full and 
sufficient of itself, if we had not another. One good argument 
will sustain any true proposition ; for a false proposition can 
never bring to its aid one sound argument. 

The next class of witnesses to whose testimony we invite at- 
tention is that of the ancient versions. Of these the oldest is 
the Peshito Syriac version, supposed to have been completed 
early in the second century : some say, at the close of the first. 
Dr. Henderson, a learned Pedobaptist, gives it as his opinion 
that ** when the Lord gave the commission to the Apostles to 
baptize all nations, there is every reason to believe that he em- 
ployed the identical word found in the Peshito Syriac version.^' 
That word for haptizo is amad, which, this aforesaid Dr. Hender- 
son maintains, etymologically signifies ^^ stand up,^' ^^ stand erectJ* 
If this be the original word used by the Saviour in his native 
Syro-Chaldaic language, then haptizo found in our Greek copies 
must be a translation of amad, and, in the judgment of the 
Greek translators of Matthew, equivalent to it. But who of 
the Pedobaptist school will presume to say that haptizo means 
to stand up or stand straight f The fact, then, is, Dr. Henderson 
is wrong either in his construction of amady or our Lord could 
not have used amad, inasmuch as all copies have haptizo in the 
commission, according to Matthew: and no man, now-a-days, 
will argue that haptizo means to stand up, or that the Syriac 
amad means to sprinkle, pour, or purify. 

One might argue that as baptism has a resurrection in it as 
well as a burial, it might be no more figurative or improper to 
call it a rising up to a new life, than a lying down or putting 
off of an old one — an emersion as well as an immersion. If, 
indeed, as some Pedobaptists suppose, it etymologically means 
to " stand up," or " rise up,'' rather than to be buried, it makes 
nothing at all against our views, while it certainly does against 
infant sprinkling : for who could make an infant stand up, or 
stand erect, to receive a drop of water or the sign of a cross ? 

But what say the lexicons 1 

*' Castel and his editor Michaelis, Buxtorf, and Schaaf are all 
unanimous. The first gives the following meanings : * Ablutus 
est, baptizatus est. Aphel, immersit, baptizavit.' Buxtorf gives, 



136 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

* Baptizari, intingi, ablui, abluere se. Ethp. Idem. Aphel, bap- 
tizare.' Schaaf: * Ablui se, ablutus, intinctus, immersus in 
aquam, baptizatus est. Ethpeely Idem q^iod Peal, Apliel, im- 
mersit, baptizavit/ Gutbier, in the small lexicon affixed to his 
edition of the Syriac Testament, gives the meaning, * Bap- 
tizavit, baptizatus est. It sustentavit ;' but without any refer- 
ence to support the last meaning ; and it is apparently intro- 
duced simply for the purpose of deducing from the verb the 
noun columna. With this exception, the authority of the lexi- 
cons referred to is altogether against any such meaning as * to 
stand.' '' 

These three great authorities give to amad the very same 
meanings vrhich our twelve Greek Lexicons give to haptizo and 
its family — to immerse, dip, or plunge, and, figuratively, to wash 
or cleanse. 

With regard to the Arabic versions, the Persic, Ethiopic, the 
Egyptian with its three dialects, the Coptic or Memphitic, the 
Sahidic or Thebaic, and the Basmuric of the Delta — to all of 
which the name Coptic is often applied ; and with regard to the 
Armenian, Slavonic, and Gothic, with its German, Dutch, 
Swedish, and Danish families, down to the Anglo-Saxon, to the 
history of all of which I have paid some attention so far as to 
trace the developments of the gospel commission ; I shall give 
the result of my investigations, both general and special, in the 
words of Mr. Gotch, of Trinity College, Dublin, in his critical 
examination of the rendering of the word haptizo in the ancient 
and many of the modern versions of the New Testament : — 

** The conclusions to which the investigation leads us, are — 

"With regard to the ancient versions, in all of them, with three 
exceptions, (viz. the Latin from the third century, and the Sahi- 
dic and Basmuric,) the word haptizo is translated by words 
purely native; and the .three excepted versions adopted the 
Greek word, not by way of transference, but in consequence of 
the term having become current language. 

" Of native words employed, the Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Cop- 
tic, Armenian, Gothic, and earliest Latin, all signify to immerse ; 
the Anglo-Saxon, both to immerse and to cleanse ; the Persic, to 
wash ; and the Slavonic, to cross. The meaning of the word 
adopted from the Greek, in Sahidic, Basmuric, and Latin, being 
also to immerse, 

2. ** With regard to the modern versions examined, the Eastern 
generally adhere to the ancient Eastern versions, and translate 
by words signifying to immerse. Most of the Gothic dialects, 
viz. the German, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, &c., employ altered 
forms of the Gothic word signifying to dip. The Icelandic uses 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 



137 



a word meaning cleanse. The Slavic dialects follow the ancient 
Slavonic ; and the languages formed from the Latin, including 
the English, adopt the word haptizo ; though, with respect to 
the English, the words wash and christen were formerly used, as 
well as baptize. 

It may perhaps be acceptable to place these results together 
in a tabular form, as follows : — 



VERSION. 


date. 


WORD EMPLOYED. 


meaning. 


Syriac : 








Peshito, 


2d cent. 


amad. 


immerse. 


Philoxenian, 


6th cent. 


amadf 


immerse. 


Arabic : 








Polyglot, 


7th cent. 


amada 47 times. 


immerse. 


Propaganda, 


1671 


amada. 


immerse. 


Sabat, 


1816 


amada, 


immerse. 


Persic, 


8 th cent. 


shustan&shuyidan, wash. 


Ethiopic : 


4th cent. 


shustan, 


immerse. 


Amharic, 


1822 


shustan, 


immerse. 


Egyptian : 








Coptic, 


3d cent. 


tanaka, 


f immerse, 
[plunge. 


Sahidic, 


2d cent. 1 


, .. 




Basmuric, 


3d cent. \o<^P^^^' 


immerse. 


Armenian, 


5th cent. 


mogridil, 


immerse. 


Slavonic : 


9th cent. 


Jcrestitiy 


cross. 


Russian, 


1519 1 






Polish, 


1585 






Bohemian, 


1593 






Lithuanian, 


1660 


' same root, 


cross. 


Livonian, or Lettish, 1685 






Dorpat Esthonian 


1727 






&c. &c. 


J 






Gothic : 


4th cent. 


daupjan, 


dip 


German, 


1522 


taufen, 


dip. 


Danish, 


1524 


dobe, 


dip. 


Swedish, 


1534 


dopa, 


dip. 


Dutch, 


1460 


doopen, 


dip. 


&c. &c. 








Icelandic, 


1584 


sJcira, 


cleanse. 


Anglo-saxon, 
Latin : 

Of the early fathei 


8th cent. 


dyppan, fullian, 


dip, cleanse* 


's 8th cent. 


tingo, 


immerse. 


Ante-Hieronymian, 3d cent. 


haptizo, 


immerse. 


Vulgate, 


4th cent. 


haptizo, 


immerse. 


French, 


1535 


haptiser. 


immerse. 


Spanish, 


1556 


haptizar, 


immerse. 


Italian, 


1562 


hapttezzare, 


immerse. 


&c. &c. 









12* 



138 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 



YERSION*. 


DATE. 


WORD EMPLOYED. 


MEANING. 


English: Wicklif, 


1380 


wash, christen^ 
baptize, 


immerse. 


Tindal, 


1526 


baptize, 




Welsh, 


1567 


bedyddlOy 


batlie. 


Irish, 


1602 


baisdim, 


bathe. 


Gaelic, 


1650 


baisdeam. 


bathe.'' 



Here, then, we have sixteen ancient versions, six of them in 
the 2d and 3d centuries, and ten of them completed before the 
close of the 9th, indicative of immersion — one, from the sign 
made in baptism by the Komanists, is rendered cross. From the 
9th century, we have twenty more, all indicative of the same fact. 
In all these, we have thirty-six foreign, and many of them an- 
cient versions, in proof of our first proposition. 

In all these, it is not once rendered by the word sprinkle or 
pour. The investigation of Mr. Gotch goes to show, moreover, 
that the notion of either transferring the original word into 
translations, or of manufacturing new words, has no counte- 
nance from these thirty-six ancient and modern versions. He 
very justly observes — 

** Our investigation, then, shows that it has not been the prac- 
tice of translators, until quite recent times, to adopt the plan of 
* transference' in respect to the word baptizo. The word has 
been translated, in most instances, by a term strictly native ; or, 
where the term has been derived from the Greek, it appears to 
have become naturalized in the respective languages before the 
translation was made. There is no instance, until of late years, 
in which it can be shown that the translators made the word ; 
and it well deserves the consideration of all who are engaged in 
translating, or disseminating translations of the word of God, 
how far such a plan is justifiable. It may, indeed, be said, that 
though the word baptizo has not been thus transferred, other 
words have ; and that thereby the principle of transference is 
countenanced by former translators. It is certain that such 
words as proper names, and designations of things which are 
not known, and therefore have no word by which they can be 
expressed, must be so rendered: but what proof is there of 
translators, in general, carrying transference farther than this ? 
Let it be remembered, that the Greek language was closely 
united to the Latin, to which the appeal has been frequently 
made ; and that on this account, Greek words were continually 
naturalized in it. Such words we may expect to meet with ; 
but to prove that translators transferred words in the modern 
sense of the term, it must be shown that words, the meaning of 
which might have been expressed in the language, were given, 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 133 

not only by terms derived from the Greek, but without mean- 
ing ; — being made for the occasion, and purposely left without 
definition. It will not surely be said that the word haptizo has 
no meaning, — that a command, involving, as most Christians 
believe, a thing to be done by or for every disciple, yet conveys 
no definite idea of what is to be done. We are not now inquir- 
ing what that meaning is : every one who attempts to translate 
the word of God is bound to judge for himself on that point. 
Let him so judge, and give the result of his judgment/' 
To all which we cheerfully assent. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

ENGLISH TRANSLATORS. 



Argument 4. — No English translator, known to me, has at any timci 
translated any word of the Bapto family by the words, sprinkle, pour, 
or purify. 

By English translators, we understand those who have made 
into our vernacular a translation of any of the books of the 
Apostolic writings, or of the whole volume. In the late Lon- 
don Hexapla, which lies before me, first published by Baxter, 
London, 1841, there are the six most prominent English ver 
sions ; viz. that of Wicklif, a. d. 1380 ; Tyndale, 1584 ; Cran- 
mer, 1539 ; Geneva, 1557 ; Anglo Rhemish, 1582 ; Authorized, 
1611. Besides these six versions, of most distinguished fame, 
I have more than as many others of much respectability ; and 
some of them, upon the whole, of equal literary merit, — such as 
Doddridge's, Thompson's, Wesley's, Penn's, the Anonymous, 
Campbell's Four Gospels, McKnight's Epistles, Stuart's version 
of the Romans and Hebrews — works of much merit, besides 
some others of minor fame, not including a Baptist version, 
which, although I am in many points better pleased with it than 
with the common, I deem it improper to admit into this class of 
witnesses. Now, of some fifteen complete versions on my shelf, 
besides several partial ones, not one has ever translated any 
word of the Bapto family by the words, sprinkle, pour, or purify. 

But I make my appeal, not only to the translations themselves, 
but to the authors of them, — to as many of them, at least, aa 



140 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

have written or spoken freely on the eubject, to whose writings 
and opinions we have had access, directly or indirectly. Wil- 
liam Tyndale: " The plunging into water signifieth that we die 
and are buried with Christ, as concerning the old life of sin, 
which is Adam ; and the pulling out again signifieth that we rise 
a^am with Christ in a new life.'' Beza: ^^ Baptizein does not 
signify to wash but by consequence ; for, properly, it signifies 
to immerse for the sake of dyeing or tinging/' — Vol. ii. p. 27, 28. 
The translators of the common version were all, or nearly all, 
genuine Episcopalians, and, at the very time they made the 
version, were accustomed to use a liturgy which made it the 
minister's duty, in the sacrament of baptism, "to take the child 
and dip it in the water" contained in the font. I have seen 
copies of James' version, printed in 1611, which contain the 
psalms and the service of the church, in which frequent allu- 
sions are made to immersion, all indicative of the fact that it 
was then regarded as the primitive and proper baptism ; conse- 
quently, these translators accepted the king's appointment and 
restrictions, to retain baptize and baptism, rather than translate 
them, and on no occasion favoured the innovation of sprinkling 
by any rendering, or note marginal, in that translation. 

Doddridge, on Acts viii. 38, says, "Baptism was generally ad- 
ministered by immersion, though I see no proof that it was essen- 
tial to the institution. It would be very unnatural to suppose 
that they went down to the water merely that Philip might take 
up a little water in his hand to pour on the eunuch. A person 
of his dignity had, no doubt, many vessels with him in his bag- 
gage on such a journey through so desert a country — a precau- 
tion absolutely necessary for travellers in these parts, and never 
omitted by them.""^ On Romans vi. 4, Doddridge repeats the 
same views, saying — " It seems the part of candour to confess, 
that here is an allusion to the manner of baptizing by immer- 
sion, as most usual in these early times." Of course, then, this 
erudite and pious Congregationalist could never render any 
member of this family by any word intimating any action dif- 
ferent from immersion. 

McKnight, also, not only in his Epistles, but also in his Har- 
mony, bears witness to the true and proper meaning of the word. 

* See Dr. Shaw's Travels, Preface, p. 4. 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 141 

He substitutes dip for wash in Mark vii. 4 : For when they come 
from market, except they dip themselves, they eat not.* 

The divers washings of the ninth of the Hebrews, common 
version, he translates into divers immersions, and thus restores 
two of the mistranslations of baptizo back to their proper meaning. 
In his comments on Kom. vi. and Col. ii., and in many other 
passages, he boldly asserts immersion as the proper baptism, 
practised and taught in the primitive age : 

** In baptism, the rite of initiation into the Christian Church, 
the baptized person is buried under the water, as one put to 
death with Christ on account of sin, in order that he may be 
strongly impressed with a sense of the malignity of sin, and ex- 
cited to hate it as the greatest of evils, ver. 3. Moreover, in 
the same rite, the baptized person being raised up out of the 
water, after being washed, he is thereby taught that he shall be 
raised from the dead with Christ, by the power of the Father, 
to live with him for ever in heaven, provided he is prepared for 
that life by true holiness, ver. 4, 5. Farther, by their baptism, 
believers are laid under the strongest obligations to holiness, 
because it represents their old man, their old corrupt nature, as 
crucified with Christ, to teach them that their body, which sin 
claimed as its property, being put to death, was no longer to 
serve sin as its slave." 

" Christ's baptism was not the baptism of repentance ; for he 
never committed any sin : but, as was observed. Prelim. Ess. 1, 
at the beginning, he submitted to be baptized, that is, to be 
huried under the water by John, and to be raised out of it again, 
as an emblem of his future death and resurrection. In like 
manner, the baptism of believers is emblematical of their own 
death, burial, and resurrection. See Col. ii. 12, note 1. Per- 
haps also it is a commemoration of Christ's baptism. 

" He tells the Komans, that since they were planted together 
in the likeness of his death, namely, when they were baptized, 
they shall be also planted together in the likeness of his resurrec- 
tion, by being raised to a new life in the body at the last day. 

" The burying of Christ and of believers, first in the water of 
baptism, and afterwards in the earth, is fitly enough compared 
to the planting of seeds in the earth, because the efiect in both 
cases is a reviviscence to a state of greater perfection. '^ 

'^ Being buried with him in baptism, Christ began his ministry 
with receiving baptism from John, to show in an emblematic man- 
ner, that he was to die and to rise again from the dead. And 
after his resurrection, he commanded his disciples to initiate 
mankind into his religion, by baptizing them, as he himself had 

* Sec. 64, p. 352. 



142 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

been baptized, to show, that although they shall die, like him, 
through the malignity of sin, yet, as certainly as he rose from 
the dead, believers shall be raised at the last day, with bodies 
fashioned like to his glorious body. Wherefore, his disciples 
having been baptized, as he was, and for the very same purpose, 
they are fitly said to be buried with Christ in baptism ; and in 
baptism to be raised with him.'' 

^* The circumcision which Christ performs, being accom- 
plished by the influence of the doctrines of the gospel on the 
minds of believers ; and their belief of these doctrines being 
founded on their belief of the resurrection of Christ, their be- 
lief of that great miracle is justly represented as the means, 
whereby they are raised out of the water of baptism new crea- 
tures, who, as the apostle observes in the next verse, are, like 
Christ, to be raised at the last day, to an eternal life in the 
body."^ 

Dr. George Campbell need scarcely be named in this place, 
inasmuch as his views of baptizo and baptismos are so clearly, 
fully, and repeatedly declared. A single passage from him is 
all that we shall quote at present : 

" * Undergo an immersion like that which I must undergo,^ to 
haptisma ho ego baptizomai baptisthenai, English translation: 
To be baptized with the baptism that I am to be baptized with. 
The primitive signification of baptisma is immersion; of bap- 
tizeiuy to immerse, plunge, or overwhelm. The noun ought never 
to be rendered baptism, nor the verb to baptize, but when em- 
ployed in relation to a religious ceremony. The verb baptizein 
sometimes, and baptein, which is synonymous, often occurs in 
the Septuagint and Apocryphal writings, and is always rendered 
in the common version by one or other of these words, to dip, to 
wash, to plunge. When the original expression, therefore, is 
rendered in familiar language, there appears nothing harsh or 
extraordinary in the metaphor. Phrases like these, to be over- 
whelmed with grief, to be immersed in affliction, will be found 
common in most languages.'' 

" The word baptizein, both in sacred authors and classical, 
signifies, to dip, to plunge, to immerse, and was rendered by Ter- 
tullian, the oldest of the Latin fathers, tingere, the term used for 
dyeing cloth, which was by immersion. It is always construed 
suitably to this meaning. Thus it is, en udati, en to lordane. 
But I should not lay much stress on the preposition en, which, 
answering to the Hebrew beth, may denote with as well as m, 
did not the whole phraseology, in regard to this ceremony, con- 
cur in evincing the same thing. Accordingly, the baptized are 

* Boston Ed. 1810, six vols. Vol. i. p. 283. Also, on Rom. vi. 4, 5, p. 288. Again, 
vol. iii. p. 520 and 521. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 143 

Baid anabainein, to arise, emerge, or ascend, Matthew iii. 17, apo 
tou udatos, and Acts viii. 39, ek ton udatos, from or out of the wa- 
ter. Let it be observed further, that the verbs raino and rantizo, 
used in Scripture for sprinkling, are never construed in this 
manner. I will sprinkle you with clean water, is in the Septua- 
gint, Raino epV umas katharon hudor, and not as haptizo is 
always construed. Raino umas en katharo udati. See also Ex. 
xxxix. 21. Leviticus vi. 27, xvi. 14. Had laptizo been here 
employed in the sense of raino, I sprinkle, (which, as far as I 
know, it never is, in any use, sacred or classical,) the expression 
would doubtless have been Ego haptizo eph umas udor, or apo 
tou udatou, agreeably to the examples referred to. When, there- 
fore, the Greek word haptizo is adopted, I may say, rather than 
translated into modern languages, the mode oi construction 
ought to be preserved so far as may conduce to suggest its ori- 
ginal import. It is to be regretted that we have so much evi- 
dence that even good and learned men allow their judgments to 
be warped by the sentiments and customs of the sect which 
they prefer. The true partisan, of whatever denomination, 
always inclines to correct the diction of the Spirit by that of the 
party."* 

Beza observes, on Mark vii. 4 : " Christ commanded us to be 
baptized ; by which word, it is certain, immersion is signified ; 
haptizesthai, in this place, is more than niptein; because that 
seems to respect the whole body, this only the hands. Nor does 
I^aptizein signify to wash, except by consequence ; for it properly 
signifies to immerse for the sake of dyeing. To be baptized in 
water, signifies no other than to be immersed in water, which is 
the external ceremony of baptism. Baptizo differs from the 
verb dunai, which signifies to plunge in the deep and to drown .^' 

After such testimonies as the above, it would seem superflu- 
ous to add from Wesley such concessions as his remarks on 
Rom. vi. 4': " We are buried with him,'' &c. ** Alluding here 
to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion ;" or to the 
concessions of Stuart, who has said : 

" That the Greek fathers, and the Latin ones who were fami- 
liar with the Greek, understood the usual import of the word 
baptize, would hardly seem to be capable of a denial. That 
they might be confirmed in their view of the import of this word, 
by common usage among the Greek classic authors, we have 
seen in the first part of this dissertation. 

" For myself, then, I cheerfully admit, that haptizo in the New 
Testament, when applied to the rite of baptism, does in all pro- 
bability involve the idea, that this rite was usually performed 
by immersion, but not always." 

* Campbell's Dissertations, vol. iy. p. 128, and p. 24. 



144 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

Evident, then, it is, not only that the English translators did 
not even translate baptizo, or its lineage, by the words pour, 
sprinkle^ or purify, but that they could not so translate them 
from their knowledge of the ancient customs and the classic and 
sacred use of these terms. 

Thus, then, we have, by a new, distinct, and independent class 
of witnesses, of the highest celebrity for eminent literary at- 
tainments and for highly cultivated and refined conscientious- 
ness, furnished another argument in proof of our first proposi- 
tion, which, without regard to any other, would seem sufficient 
to establish it beyond the possibility of refutation. For, will 
not that distinguished doctor. Common Sense, whom all be- 
lieve, naturally conclude that so many learned, conscientious, and 
religious men, having so much at stake themselves, continually 
sprinkling in the name of the Lord, would, if they could, have 
given some countenance to their own favourite practice, by trans- 
lating some one or more of these one hundred and twenty-six 
occurrences of these terms in a way favourable to their own be- 
loved practice. Certain it is, then, that their practice had some 
other foundation than the meaning of the word in the apostolic 
commission, concerning which foundation we may hereafter 
speak. 



CHAPTER V. 

Argument 5. — Reformers, Annotators, Paraplirasts, and' Critics, 

Our fifth argument in support of this proposition shall con- 
sist of the testimony of reformers, annotators, paraphrasts, and 
critics, touching the meaning of the terms in dispute, and the 
ancient usage, — selected from those only who favoured sprink- 
ling or pouring as a more convenient, comfortable, and polite 
usage. 

At the head of the list, we must place Luther. 

In the 5th of the Smalcald articles drawn up by Luther, he 
gays, " Baptism is nothing else than the word of God with im- 
mersion in water.'^ 

" Baptism is a Greek word, and may be translated immersion, 
as when we immerse something in water, that it may be wholly 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 145 

covered. And although it is almost wholly abolished, (for they 
do not dip the whole children, but only pour a little water on 
them,) they ought nevertheless to be wholly immersed, and then 
immediately drawn out ; for that the etymology of the word seems 
to demand J' " Washing of sins is attributed to baptism ; it is 
truly, indeed, attributed, but the signification is softer and 
slower than it can express baptism, which is rather a sign both 
of death and resurrection. Being moved by this reason, I would 
have those that are to be baptized, to be altogether dipt into the 
water, as the word doth sound, and the mystery doth signify.'^* 

Calvin : " The word baptizo signifies to immerse, and it is 
certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church.^'f 

Grotius : The great Grotius says, " That this rite was wont to 
be performed by immersion, and not by perfusion, appears both 
by the propriety of the word and the places chosen for its ad- 
ministration, John iii. 23, Acts viii. 38, and by the many allu- 
sions of the Apostles, which cannot be referred to sprinkling, 
Rom. vi. 3, 4, Col. ii. 12. The custom of perfusion or aspersion 
seems to have obtained some time after, in favor of such who 
lying dangerously ill were desirous to dedicate themselves to 
Christ: These were called Clinics by other Christians. See 
Cyprian's Epistle to Magnus to this purpose. Nor should we 
wonder that the old Latin fathers use tingere for haptizare, see- 
ing the Latin word tingo does properly and generally signify the 
same as mersare, to immerse or plunge.'^ J 

Dionysius Petavius : "And indeed,^^ says he, "immersion is 
properly styled haptismos, though at present we content our- 
selves with pouring water on the head, which in Greek is called 
perixusis, that is, perichysm, if I may so Anglicize, but not bap- 
tism." 

Casaubon : " For the manner of baptizing," says he, " was to 
plunge or dip them into the water, as even the word haptizein 
itself plainly enough shows, which, as it does not signify dunein 
to sink down and perish, neither certainly does it signify epipo- 
lazein, to swim or float a-top ; these three words, epipolazein, hap- 
tizein, dunein, being very different." 

Vitringa : " The act of baptizing is the immersion of believers 
in water. This expresses the force of the word."| 

Salmasius : " Baptism is immersion, and was administered in 
former times according to the force and meaning of the word."|| 

Hospinianus: "Christ commanded us to be baptized; by 
which it is certain immersion is signified."T[ 

Zanchius : " The proper signification of baptize is to immerse, 
plunge under, to overwhelm in water." 



* Op. vol. i. 336. t Instit. b. 4. s. 15. 

X Math. iii. 6. Gale. g Aphor. Sanct Theol. Aphoris. 884. 

II De Csesarie Virorum, p. 6C9. ^ Hist. Sacram. 1. ii. c. i. 30. 

13 



146 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

Alstedius: "To haptize signifies only to immerse; not to wash, 
except by consequence/' 

Witsius: "It cannot be denied that the native signification of 
the words haptein and hapteizein is to plunge, to dip/'^ 

Gurtlerus: "To haptize, among the Greeks, is undoubtedly to 
immerse, to dip ; and baptism is immersion, dipping. Baptismos 
en Pneumati liagio, baptism in the Holy Spirit, is immersion into 
the pure waters of the Holy Spirit ; for he on whom the Holy 
Spirit is poured out, is, as it were, immersed into him. Baptis- 
mos enpuri, * baptism in fire,' is a figurative expression, and sig- 
nifies casting into a flame, which, like water, flows far and wide ; 
such as the flame that consumed Jerusalem. The thing com- 
manded by the Lord, is baptism ; immersion into water .''f 

Baddaeus : "The words haptizein and baptismos are not to be 
interpreted of aspersions, but always of immersion.'' J 

Ewing, of Glasgow: ^'Baptizo, in its primary and radical sense, 
I cover with water. It is used to denote, 1st. I plunge, or sink 
completely under water." 

Leigh: "The native and proper signification of it [baptize\ is, 
to dip into water, or to plunge under water." | 

Bossuet: " To baptize signifies to plunge, as is granted by all 
the world." 

Vossius, as quoted by Gale: "The great Vossius speaks exactly 
to the same purpose, and, indeed, almost in the same words ; for 
without ever taking the least notice of lavo, or the like, he ex- 
pressly says, that hapto and haptizo are rendered by mergo or 
mergito, and tingo, yet they properly signify mergo; and tingo 
only by a metalepsis, i. e, as tingo implies mergo: and, therefore, 
he adds, tinging follows immersion, and is done by it." 

Venema: " The word haptizein, to baptize, is nowhere used in 
the Scripture for sprinkling.''^ 

Bloomfield: "There is here [Kom. vi. 4] plainly a reference 
to the ancient mode of baptism by immersion ; and I agree 
'with Koppe and Rosenmuller, that there is reason to regret it 
should have been abandoned in most Christian churches, espe- 
cially as it has so evident a reference to the mystic sense of 
baptism." 

Scholz, on Matt. iii. 6 : " Baptism consists in the immersion 
of the whole body in water." 

August! : " The word baptism, according to the etymology 
and usage, signifies to immerse, submerge, &c., and the choice 
of the word betrays an age in which the later custom of sprink- 
ling had not been introduced." 

Buttman, in his Larger Grammar, simply puts down, ^^hapfOy 
to immerse." 



* In. His. Ecc. p. 138. f Institut. Theo. cap. xxxiii. §§ 108, 109, 110, 125. 

t Theolog, Dogmat. 1. v. c. i. g 5. g Vol. p. 5. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 147 

Edinburgh Reviewers of Carson's work : " They tell me (says 
Mr. Carson) that it was unnecessary to bring forward any one 
of the examples to prove that the word signifies to dip, — that I 
might have commenced with this as a fixed point universally 

ADMITTED." 

Before dismissing this host of witnesses, sine die, while we 
have the Greek lexicographers, Greek classics, Bible translatorSy 
reformers, annotators, paraphrasts, and critics before us, all con- 
curring with perfect unanimity in giving to baptizo, the word 
in the apostolic commission, the primary and proper meaning 
of dip, immerse, plunge, and no other figurative or rhetorical 
meaning incompatible therewith, I shall, to relieve the reader 
from so much attention to the mere documentary details of evi- 
dence, institute an argument on one philological fact, or law of 
language, which not only gives a satisfactory reason for this 
truly marvellous concurrence, but also itself constitutes a new 
argument, so far, at least, as to show that this word never can 
have but one meaning. The force of this argument requires 
only a concession which no man can refuse, namely, that baptizo 
once signifies to dip or immerse. This point conceded, and, ac- 
cording to the law in such cases, it must always signify to dip. 

Mr. Carson, one of the most acute and able critics on this 
subject, affirms that words of mode have but one meaning, and 
that baptizo is a verb of mode. To that canon I unhesitatingly 
assent. It is incontrovertibly true. Still, whether baptizo be a 
word of mode may be questioned. It is, indeed, denied by 
some, and although without proper evidence, still, in this case, 
it is to my mind objectionable, for two reasons : — 1st. In the 
profound policies of the more ingenious Pedobaptists, the whole 
controversy concerning the baptismal action was converted into 
a mere question of mode. The less educated and unsuspecting 
Baptists were ensnared by it ; and, as their more prudent oppo- 
nents designed, for some two centuries there have been on the 
theatre no less than three modes of baptism. One baptism with 
three modes I A grand ecclesiastical hoax ! All have been en- 
trammelled by it. And yet, like the lunar hoax, it only required 
a single reflection to annihilate it. Translate the one baptism 
and the three modes by their proper significants, and the sophis- 
try is exposed. One immersion by any one of the modes, sprink- 
ling, pouring, or immersing! Or substitute one pouring, by 
the mode of immersion, sprinkling, or pouring ! ! I do not 



148 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

recollect to have ever seen this sophism exposed before my de- 
bate with Mr. Walker, in June, 1820. 

i But, in the second place, it may be asked, of what action is 
immersion the mode ? It is not necessarily, but accidentally a 
mode of washing, because there is neither soap nor water in 6ap- 
tizo. It is not necessarily a mode of staining, dyeing, colouring, 
purifying, any more than of polluting, burning, or destroying. 
Of what general action is it, then, the mode ? I It may, indeed, 
be perchance a mode of cleansing, purifying, washing, colour- 
ing, &c., but only by accident, and not from necessity. For 
these two reasons, I am unwilling, under all the ordinary cir- 
cumstances of this case, to adopt the definition that ^^haptizo is 
a word of modeJ' I would rather say, it is a word of specvftG 
action. 

All verbs of action are either generic or specific. They indi- 
cate indefinite or definite action. There is nothing, for example, 
specific in the words cleanse, wash, purify, sanctify, go, come, 
&c. There is nothing specific in the word travel ; but there is 
in the words ride, walk, swim, sail. There is nothing specific 
in the word move ; but there is in creep, run, hop, leap, fly, &c. 
Now, as Dr. G. Campbell has well observed, " There is a great 
difierence between the mention of any thing as a dut]/, especially 
of that consequence that the promises or threats of religion 
depend on the performance or neglect of it, and the bare record- 
ing of an event Sisfact; as in the former the words ought to be as 
special as possible, that there may be no mistake in the applica- 
tion of the promise, no pretence for saying that more was exacted 
than was expressed in the conditions ; but in relating facts, it 
is often a matter of indifference whether the terms be general or 
special.'^* 

In the judgment, then, of this greatest and soundest of bibli- 
cal critics, baptizo ought to be a specific term, and not one of 
vague, indefinite, or generic sense. And that it is so, a little re- 
flection, methinks, will render most apparent to all. Something 
was to be done into the name of the Father, &c. This is of itself 
evidence that the action was specific ; for, if the name into which 
it was to be performed was specific, certainly it is as important 
that the action itself should have been specifically commanded. 
Nay, had it not been specifically commanded, how could the 

* Four Gospels, vol. i. dis. 6, par. 2, g 20. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 149 

ordinance be obeyed? He could not possibly mean ^^ purify 
them/' for the Messiah, having presented no form of purifica- 
tion, could not have expected obedience, unless he had specified 
the action to be done. 

But there is no need of any other proof that baptizo indicates 
a specific act, than the two facts : — 1st. That it is to be applied 
to all manner of subjects or substances, — ^to wine, oil, blood, 
water, sand, debt, grief, sorrow, spirit; and that it signifies to 
dip, at least, sometimes, says the whole learned world. Now, 
a word that once signifies to immerse, never can signify to pour 
or sprinkle ; because no three acts are more specifically difier- 
ent than these ; and because it is essential that a specific term 
have but one meaning: for example, if to walk and to ride were 
both indicated by the same word, who, on hearing that word, 
could know which action was performed ? If, then, baptizo once 
mean dip, it never can mean sprinkle, pour, or purify, unless 
these actions are identically the same. 

So obvious is this, that a person might risk even his life upon 
the fact that, if immersing a person was a capital offence, and 
if A B, when charged with it by the judges, proves that he only 
sprinkled water upon him, there is not a jury of twelve men 
compos mentis in America that will not exonerate him from the 
crime. This view of the subject is susceptible of much ampli- 
fication. But we have space only to state it in unambiguous 
terms. Baptizo means to dip, by consent of the whole world, 
and being a specific word, it never can have but one meaning, 
just as the word sprinkle never can mean to dip. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Argument 6. — English Lexicographers, Encyclopedias, and Reviewers, of 
the Pedohaptist School* 

Our sixth argument shall consist of a few testimonies from 
some of our most eminent English lexicographers, encyclopedias, 
and reviews, of the Pedobaptist school. 

Richardson, the most learned of English lexicographers, in- 
terprets the word baptizo and its family thus ; "To dip, or merge 

13* 



150 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

frequently, to sink, to plunge, to immerge." He concludes his 
long list of quotations with a few lines from Cowper — 

Philosophy, baptized 
In the pure fountain of eternal love. 
Has eyes, indeed, and viewing all she sees 
As meant to indicate a God to man. 
Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. 

Cowper^s Task, Book 3. 

Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, says, " To baptize is to chris- 
ten, to administer the sacrament of baptism to one. Baptism, 
an external ablution of the body, with a certain form of words.^^ 
This surely is popular and ecclesiastic enough. But, as quoted 
by Boswell, he says — 

*^ Dr. Johnson argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets 
of the church of Rome. As to giving the bread only to the 
laity, he said, " They may think that, in what is merely ritual, 
deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the 
ground of convenience ; and I think they are as well warranted 
to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the 
room of the ayicient baptism J ^^^ 

The Monthly Reviewers of England say — 

*' We acknowledge there are many authorities to support it 
[immersion] among the ancients. The word baptize doth cer- 
tainly signify immersion, absolute and total immersion, in Jose- 
phus and other Greek writers. " ^ ^ -5^ The examples pro- 
duced, however, do not exactly serve the cause of those who 
think that a few drops of water sprinkled on the forehead of a 
child, constitutes the essence of baptism. In the Septuagint, it 
is said that Nebuchadnezzar was baptized with the dew of hea- 
ven ; and in a poem attributed to Homer, called The Battle of 
the rrt)gs and Mice, it is said that a certain lake was baptized 
with the blood of a wounded combatant — [Ebapteto d aimati 
limne porpureo.) A question has arisen, in what sense the 
word baptize can be used in this passage. Doth it signify im- 
mersion, properly so called? Certainly not: neither can it 
signify a partial sprinkling. A body wholly surrounded with 
a mist ; wholly made humid with dew ; or a piece of water so 
tinged with and discolored by blood, that if it had been a solid 
body and dipped into it, it could not have received a more san- 
guine appearance, is a very different thing from that partial ap- 
plication which in modern times is supposed sufficient to consti- 
tute full and explicit baptism. The accommodation of the word 
baptism to the instances we have referred to is not unnatural, 
though highly metaphorical ; and may be resolved into a trope 

* Life of Johnson, vol. 2, p. 499, 509. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. - 151 

or figure of speech, in which, though the primary idea is main- 
tained, yet the mode of expression is altered ; and the word 
itself is to be understood rather alliisively than really, rather 
relatively than absolutely. If a body had been baptized or im- 
mersed, it could not have been more wet than Nebuchadnezzar^s ; 
if a lake had been dipped in blood, it could not have put on a 
more bloody appearance. 

** Hitherto the Antipedobaptists [or Baptists] seem to have 
had the hest of the argument on the mode of administering tho 
ordinance. The most explicit authorities are on their side. 
Their opponents have chiefly availed themselves of inference^ 
analogy, and doubtful constructionJ^* 

It is due to our opponents, that when we quote their special 
pleaders, we ought to give their testimony on both sides. 

Chambers^ Cyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences : 
London, 1786. " Baptism, in Theology ; formed from the Greek 
baptizo, of bapto — I dip or plunge, a rite or ceremony by which 
persons are initiated into the profession of the Christian religion. 

** The practice of the Western Church is to sprinkle the water 
on the head or face of the person to be baptized, except in the 
Church of Milan, in whose ritual it is ordered that the head of 
the infant be plunged three times into the water ; the minister 
at the same time pronouncing the words, * I baptize thee in the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost^ — importing 
that by this ceremony the person baptized is received among 
the professors of that religion, which God, the Father of all, 
revealed to mankind by the ministry of his Son, and confirmed 
by the miracles of his Spirit. A triple immersion was first used, 
and continued for a long time : this was to signify either the 
three days that our Saviour lay in the grave, or the three per- 
sons in the Trinity. But it was afterwards laid aside, because 
the Arians used it : it was thought proper to plunge but once. 
Some are of the opinion, that sprinkling in baptism was begun 
in cold countries. It was introduced into England about the 
beginning of the ninth century. At the Council of Celchyth, in 
816, it was ordered that the priest should not only sprinkle the 
holy water upon the head of the infant, but likewise plunge it 
in the bason. There are abundance of ceremonies delivered by 
ecclesiastical writers, as used in baptism, which are now dis- 
used ; as the giving milk and honey to the baptized, in the East ; 
wine and milk in the West, &c. 

" The opinion of the necessity of baptism in order to salvation, 
is grounded on these two sayings of our Saviour: *He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized, shall be saved ;' and, * Except a man be 

* Monthly Review, toI. Ixx. p. 496. 



152 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

bom of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God/ '' 

Brand/ s Cyclopedia: New York, 1843. "Baptism, (Gr,hapiOf 
I dip.) The rite of initiation into the community of Christians, 
ordained by Christ himself, when he commissioned his Apostles 
to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost. 

" Baptism was originally administered by immersion, which 
act is thought by some to be necessary to the sacrament. It is 
not clear, however, even in the Scripture History, that this cere- 
mony was always adhered to. At present, sprinkling is gene- 
rally substituted for dipping, at least in northern climates.^' 

Taylor^ s Calmet, *' Baptism is taken in Scripture for suffer- 
ings : * Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized 
with the baptism which I am baptized with V Mark x. 38. And 
Luke xii. 50, * I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how 
am I straitened till it be accomplished?^ We find traces of 
similar phraseology in the Old Testament, (Ps. Ixix. 2, 3,) where 
waters often denote tribulations ; and where, to be swallowed 
up by the waters, to pass through great waters, &c., signifies to 
be overwhelmed by misfortunes. 

"There is a very sudden turn of metaphor used by the 
Apostle Paul, in Rom. vi. 3-5. * Know ye not that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his 
death f therefore we are buried with him by baptism into his death 
— that we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been 
planted together [with him] in the likeness of his death, we shall 
be also planted in the likeness of his resurrection/ Now what 
has baptism to do with planting f Wherein consists their simi- 
larity, so as to justify the resemblance here implied ? In 1 Peter 
iii. 21, we find the Apostle speaking of baptism, figuratively, as 
* saving us ;' and alluding to Noah, who long lay buried in the 
ark, as corn long lies buried in the earth. Now, as after having 
died to his former course of life in being baptized, a convert was 
considered as rising to a renewed life, so, after having been sepa- 
rated from his former connections, his seed-bed, as it were, after 
having died in being planted, he was considered as rising to re- 
newed life also." 

Edinburgh Encyc. " In the time of the Apostles the form of 
baptism was very simple. The person to be baptized was dip- 
ped in a river or vessel, with the words which Christ had ordered, 
and, to express more fully his change of character, generally as- 
sumed a new name. The immersion of the whole body was 
omitted only in the case of the sick, who could not leave their 
beds. In this case, sprinkling was substituted, which was called 
clinic baptism. The Greek church, as well as the schismatics in 
the East, retained the custom of immersing the whole body ; but 
the Western church adopted, in the thirteenth century, the mode 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 153 

of baptism by sprinkling, which has been continued by the Pro- 
testants, Baptists only excepted/^ 

These we deem a fair specimen of this species of testimony. 
To these many more might be adduced, but without increasing 
authority. Amongst these Encyclopedias and Dictionaries are 
the chief standards and originals of the modern. Most of the 
Dictionaries commonly in use, like Webster and Walker, give 
no meaning of the terms but that in common use. With them 
they mean what modern practice says, to christen, to sprinkle, 
or to immerse. The elder ones, before the controversy became 
80 warm, gave the original and proper meaning of this much 
and long litigated word. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Argument 7. — ^Words used in construction with Bapttzo, JRaino, JRantizOf 
Cheo, and Louo, such as epi, en^ eia, eh, ajpo. 

Our seventh argument, in development and confirmation of 
the true meaning of baptizo, is derived from the words used in 
construction with it, as contradistinguished from all its rivals, 
rainOy cheo, louo, and the prepositions, epi, en, eis, eJc, ajpo, used 
in construction with them. 

We shall commence with epi, the word essential to the use of 
raino, rantizo, and that family. For the reasons already given, 
we are obliged, in positive laws and precepts, to take all the 
words in their primitive, proper, or common, and not in their 
figurative and peculiar significations. Epi frequently signifies on 
or upon; en, generally, in ; eis, into ; eJc, of, out of, or from ; and 
apo, from. But we have a shorter and more satisfactory way of 
ascertaining the use and import of these prepositions than the 
more common method of comparing all their occurrences : We 
take them and their principals together. For in this way there 
is less room for false and inconclusive reasoning, and the most 
illiterate may thus comprehend them. We shall illustrate this 
by taking raino, and its compound perirraino, and epi, together, 
and bapto and baptizo, with en and eis, as they are found in com- 
mon usage. I assert, then, that for some reason raino and epi 



154' ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

agree together ; haptizo and en also agree together ; but raino 
and en, or baptizo and epi, so perfectly disagree, as never tp 
be found construed in amity in any Greek author, sacred or 
profane. 

1. Perirranei epi ton Tcaiharisthenta, sprinkle the blood upon 
him to be cleansed, Lev. xiv. 7. 2. Perirranei epi teen oikian, 
sprinkle upon the house, Lev. xiv. 51. 3. Eanei epi hilasterion, 
he shall sprinkle it upon the mercy-seat, Lev. xvi. 14. This 
phrase occurs the second time in the same verse. Perirranei epi 
ton oikon, he shall sprinkle it upon the house ; epi ta skeua, upon 
the furniture ; epi tas psucJias, upon the persons. The same 
idiom is here found three times in one verse, Num. xix. 18. 
Again, in the 19th verse, Perirranei epi ton akatharton, lie shall 
sprinkle it upon the unclean. Again, Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Rano epi 
humas katharon Tiudoor, I will sprinkle upon you clean water. 
In construction, then, with the person upon whom water is 
sprinkled, the verb raino is followed by epi; never by eii or eis, 
A sprinkles water, blood, oil, dust, or 2i>sheB upon B ; but never 
sprinkles B in blood, oil, dust, &c. : whereas, haptizo in such, 
cases is followed by en and eis ; never by epi, A immerses B, 
not upon, or with, but in water. This is a most convincing fact 
that haptizo, occurring eighty times in the New Testament, is 
never construed with epi, nor raino with en or eis. Baptizo is fre- 
quently construed with en and eis, and raino with epi; but they 
never interchange these particles. A shadow does not more 
naturally accompany an object standing in the sunshine, in this 
latitude, than does epi accompany raino, and en, haptizo, in the 
cases described. 

All this is equally true in the case of cJieo, to pour. The ob- 
ject on which water or any thing is poured, is designated by epi; 
never by en. The thing poured or sprinkled always follows the 
verb to pour or sprinkle ; the person is always preceded by upon. 
Neither of these facts ever occurs in the case of haptizo. In 
that case, the person follows the verb ; and the material in which 
the action is performed is always preceded by en, expressed or 
understood. Hence, the uniform construction in the one case is, 
;" I immerse B in water ;" in the other case, the construction is, 
" I pour, or sprinkle water upon B.'^ Not more clearly different 
are these two constructions in English than they are in Greek. 
Indeed, the object immersed is never governed by a preposition; 
the object sprinkled or poured is always governed by a preposition. 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 155 

The actions, then, in the original are just as distinct as are thd 
words baptizo, cheo, raino, and their respective constructions. 

Lcmo, to wash, is by some supposed to be identical with hap- 
tizo. They imagine that because baptizo is metaphorically ren- 
dered by louo, to wash, in a few instances, they must be identi- 
cal in meaning. But such is not the fact. Baptizo is sometimes 
figuratively rendered by louo; but louo is never rendered by 
baptizo! HenCe louo and baptizo, and their representatives, to 
wash and to baptize, are not convertible terms. But, in the defi- 
nition of words, the word defined and the definition must in all 
cases be convertible, if the definition be a correct one. Hence, 
baptizo does not mean to wash, except by accident, metonymi- 
xjally. To one accustomed to read the New Testament with a 
critical eye, these are facts which clearly forbid such an assump- 
tion. For instance, louo and baptizo occur in the same sentence, 
and sometimes in the same clause of a sentence, in direct con- 
tradistinction. Thus, in the case of the jailer. Acts xvi. : " He 
washed their stripes and was baptized." And Ananias said to 
Paul, " Arise, be baptized, and wash away thy sins." 

It is not said, be washed, and then wash away thy sins. It 
does not say, " he washed their stripes, and was washed himself 
and all his family." These examples most satisfactorily demon- 
strate that the Apostles never used baptizo and louo, or immerse 
and wash, as convertible or equivalent terms. Baptism, is, 
therefore, not washing; nor washing, baptism ; in virtue of the 
meaning of the original terms. Bantizo and louo are as inimi- 
cal as baptizo and 1(mo, for we find them standing in the same 
clause together. Thus, Paul — " Having your hearts sprinkled 
from an evil conscience, and your bodies washed with clean 
water." Sprinkling and washing are, therefore, as inconvertible 
as immersion and washing. 

The precision of the Greek language, and its uniformity in 
the use of words in general, and of some words in particular, is 
truly remarkable. The Greeks that spoke and wrote during the 
last three hundred years of the Jewish dispensation, had three 
words usually translated wash. These are, nipto, louo, pluno. 
They never, in sacred use, confound them. These three repre- 
sent three kinds of washing, and, consequently, one of them is 
never substituted for th'e other. Nipto, I have found thirty-four 
times in the Greek scriptures of both institutions ; plmio, seven- 
teen times ; and louo, twenty-five times. The first has respect 



156 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

to the hands and feet ; the second, to garments and to polluted 
persons and things ; and the third, to persons and things, 
whether polluted or not.^ Bathing, the medicinal use of water, 
and cleansing from legal impurities, are set forth by Icmo, Hence 
Naaman, the leper, when commanded to bathe (louo), dipped 
himself in the Jordan seven times. I have never found epi in 
construction with nipto, louo, or pluno, any more than with hap- 
tizo, "We find en, however, in construction with them all ; be- 
cause the hands, feet, face, person, and garments might all be 
washed in some liquid, but not upon it. 

The congruity of things, therefore, calls for certain preposi- 
tions in construction with verbs of action ; and these go very 
far to settle any thing doubtful in the acceptation of the princi- 
pal word in any given passage. Now, as hapiizo has frequently 
"both en and eis construed with the liquid or material used in the 
ordinance, and raino and cheo never, follows it not that these pre- 
positions demonstrate a meaning in these words wholly incom- 
patible with each other, so far as action is concerned ? 

It is as impossible either to pour or sprinkle a man into or in 
a river, as it is to immerse him upon it, or to immerse water 
upon him. It is, therefore, ofiering the grossest violence to all 
the laws of congruous construction to attempt to translate hap- 
tizo by sprinkle, pour, or purify ; or raino and cheo by immerse, 
plunge, or overwhelm. The best lexicography, both of the prin- 
cipals and their usual retinue of particles and circumstances, 
peremptorily forbids such liberties. Concerning ek and apo, 
we shall say something in our next argument. 

* See the following references : — 

Nipto is found, Gen. xviii. 4 ; xix. 2 ; xxiv. 32 ; Ex. xxx. 19, 20, 21 ; Gen. xl. 24^ 
31; Deut. xxi. 6; Judg. xix. 21; 1 Sam. xxv. 41; 2 Sam. xi. 8; 2 Chron. iv. 8; Ps. 
xxvi. 6; Iviii. 10; Ixxiii. 13; Canticles v. 3. In the New Testament, Matt. vi. 17; 
XV. 2; Mark vii. 3 ; John ix. 7; vii. 11; xi. 15; xiii. 5, 6, 8; viii. 8, 10, 12; xiv. 14; 
1 Tim. V. 10. In all these places, wash hands, feet, or face, and nothing else, 
Pluno is found, Lev. vi. 27; xiii. 54, 55, 68 ; xiv. 8. 9; xvii. 16; 2 Chron. iv. 6; Ps. 
li. 2, 7 ; Jer. ii. 22 ; iv. 14 ; Gen. xlix. 11 ; Isa. iv. 4 ; Ezek. xvi. 9 ; Rev. vii. 14. Lmu), 
Lev. xiv. 8; Deut. xxiii. 11; Lev. xiv. 8; xvii. 16; xv. 16; xvi. 4, 24; xxii. 6; Ex. 
xxix. 4; xl. 12 ; ii. 5; Ruth iii. 5; 2 Kings v. 10, 12, 13; ix. 30; Isa. i. 16; 2 Sam. 
Xii. 20 ; Ezek. xvi. 4, 9 ; Acts ix. 37 ; xvi. 33 ; 1 Cor. vi. 11 ; Heb. x. 22 ; 2 Peter iii. 22. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 157 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Argument 8. — The places where Baptism was anciently administered. 

Our eighth argument is derived from the places where the 
ordinance of baptism was anciently administered ; which will 
still farther develop the force of the prepositions in construc- 
tion with haptizo. 

Baptism was first administered in rivers. The first Baptist, 
during his public ministry, spent much of his time on the banks 
of the Jordan. Thither resorted to him " all Judea and Jeru- 
salem, and were baptized of him in the Jordan, confessing their 
sins.'' They were not baptized upon Jordan, nor were they 
baptized with Jordan, nor was Jordan baptized upon them ; but 
they were baptized in Jordan. Our English in is but the adop- 
tion of the Greek en. The Romans borrowed their in from the 
Greeks, and we borrowed our in from the Romans ; and all 
these ins are of one and the same signification and construction. 
In is neither at, with, nor by ; except by figure. It is literally 
in. In the house, is not at the house, with the house, nor by the 
house ; but in the house. 

Now, as epi does not bring the Jordan upon them, and as eis 
and en place them in the river, the meaning of eh and apo is by 
necessity established as assisting the baptized to emerge out of 
the river. 

If the liberty which Pedobaptists have taken with these pre- 
positions, in the heat of controversy, has called forth the admi- 
ration and reproofs of their own most learned and soberminded 
men, why should it be thought strange that we should be as- 
tounded at the recklessness of such men as Dr. Miller of Prince- 
ton, and others, who, in defiance of their own reputation for 
learning and good sense, have contradicted, in express terms, all 
our lexicographers, translators, reformers, historians and distin- 
guished critics, for the sake of the papal dogma of infant rant- 
ism, consecrated by John Calvin, John Knox, Theodore Beza, 
and their adherents. 

On counting the actual occurrences of en in the New Testa- 
ment, I find it is found 2660 times. Of this immense number of 

u 



158 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

times, though these learned doctors tell you of its two-and-twenty 
meanings, it is translated in your common testament 2045 times 
by in. Yet such critics as Dr. Miller, when he puts on his Pe- 
dobaptist spectacles, will have it with always when baptism is 
alluded to. John baptizes with water ; but, when the phrase 
comes, en to Jordanee, he passes it by. He does not say, he bap- 
tized them with Jordan ; but, passing it by, he says that eis 
means at or to, in such cases. Well, not having time to count 
over the whole book, I found in the four gospels that eis occurs 
795 times. Of these, it is translated by into 372 times, and by 
to, for into, more than one hundred times ; for to the house, to 
the temple, to the city, to Jerusalem, Bethany, Nazareth, &c., 
means into; and of 273 times unto, it might have been very 
often into ; thus making, in all, 500 out of 795 occurrences. 

As for eh and apo, frequently rendered out of and from, it is, 
on two accounts, unnecessary to speak particularly ; because, 
first, whether they are more commonly rendered hjfrom, or out 
of, avails nothing, seeing ihsitfrom, nine times in ten, is out of, 
in sense. For example, from heaven, from the temple, from the 
city, from the grave, means out of these places, and not from 
the boundaries of them. In the second place, it being evident 
that haptizo, with en and eis, most certainly places the subject 
in the pool, in the river, or in the bath, ek and apo must bring 
them out of it. 

Fancy or taste may increase indefinitely the figurative mean- 
ing of words ; but the number of figurative meanings is of no 
philological account in fixing the common or proper meaning of 
any word ; still less the mere connectives of speech. 

The partial and one-sided mode of interpretation is nowhere 
more apparent than in the cavils about these prepositions. We 
shall produce but a single example : Epi and en will illustrate 
the matter. After raino or cheo, epi is always translated upon,, 
without one demurrer in all the Pedobaptist ranks ; yet epi, out 
of 920 times in the New Testament, is translated by upon only 
158 times, that is, about once in six times : whereas, en is trans- 
lated four times in every five by in. Yet to sprinkle upon is 
never cavilled at by a Pedobaptist ; while to baptize, or immerse 
in, is always repudiated as an unwarrantable licence on the part 
of a Baptist ! ! 

But the reason given why John baptized at Enon, one would 
think, ought to silence every doubt or cavil on that question. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 159 

But, alas for frail human nature ! it will not always be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead. Hence, although we 
are expressly told that John baptized at Enon, because there was 
much water there, the spirit of the sectary sets about to prove 
that there was not much water there, but only a few rivulets. 
And, if at last he is constrained to admit, that even many pools 
might be collected from many rivulets, he sets about finding 
some other use for the many rivulets and pools than for the per- 
formance of baptism. In his heated imagination, he sees all 
the dromedaries and camels of Arabia carrying the people to 
John's tent, and, that these thirsty animals, coming off their 
long journey, might have something to drink, the humane John, 
who always kept a bason and a squirt upon his table for the 
purpose of baptizing, pitched his tent near to Enon for the sake, 
not of baptizing, but of watering the caravans that flocked to his 
baptism. Credat Judceus Ajpella, non ego. To argue against 
imagination, is like arguing against love or our instinctive ap- 
petites. Still we must remark, i\i2i,i polla hudata signifies much 
water, and that John the Apostle uses the phrase in his writings 
no less than Jive times ; the other instances, too, all requiring 
much water. The mystic mother of papal Rome sits on "many 
waters.'^ Are these little rivulets, indeed ! The voice of God, 
too, is compared to the sound of many waters ! Can these be 
rivulets ? 

John, in the Hebrew and Greek style, usespoUahudatay in the 
plural form, for much water. I believe we never have hudor in 
the singular number in all the Septuagint ; hence, we are con- 
firmed in the belief that, in Jewish style, the plural form indi- 
cates much water, just as the word always indicates to us. 

But does not the sentence itself refute the presumptuous con- 
struction sometimes imposed on it. Reads it not, that John 
baptized at Enon for a given reason ? He did not encamp or 
lodge there for that reason ; but he baptized there for that 
reason. Hence, the baptizing and the reason, much water, most 
fairly and honourably go together. John baptized at Enon for 
no other reason than that there was much water there. 

Suppose, for example, we were told that a celebrated mill- 
wright had located on a certain creek because it contained much 
water, who would more honour his own understanding, he that 
affirms he located there for the sake of watering his stock, or for 
the sake of erecting mills ? 



160 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

As to the location of Enon, whether it were north of John's 
first location, some fifty miles up the river Jordan, or whether 
it was a stream issuing from a fountain called ^^Ainyorif DoveS" 
eye Spring,'' or whether it was a 5ww-fountain, near Salim, vene- 
rated by the old Canaanites, are questions I have neither leisure 
nor inclination to discuss. Robinson, in his History of Baptism, 
discusses such questions at great length. I refer the curious to 
him, and will only give a short extract from his work on the 
use of the words polla Jiudata : 

** It is observable, that the rivers Euphrates at Babylon, Tiber 
at Rome, and Jordan in Palestine are all described by polla hu" 
data, Jeremiah speaks of the first, and, addressing Babylon, 
says, * thou that dwellest upon many waters, thine end is 
come ;' for Babylon was situated on what the Jews called the 
river, the great river Euphrates. The Evangelist John describes 
Rome, which was built on the Tiber, by saying, * The great har- 
lot, the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, 
sitteth upon many waters,' Ezekiel describes Judea and Jordan, 
by saying to the princes of Israel, * Your mother is a lioness, her 
whelps devour men, she was fruitful by reason of many waters;' 
an evident allusion to the lions that lay in the thickets of Jor- 
dan. The thunder which agitates clouds, charged with floods, 
is called the voice of the Lord upon many waters: and the 
attachment that no mortification can annihilate, is a love which 
many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown. 
How it comes to pass that a mode of speaking, which on every 
other occasion signifies much, should in the case of baptism sig- 
nify little, is a question not easy to answer.'' 

To an unsophisticated mind, this passage, together with the 
various locations of John along the Jordan, sometimes on this 
side, and sometimes on that side, methinks, independent of 
every other argument, would refute the notion of sprinkling. 
But how much more, when the meaning of the word and the 
laws of construction, already established, assert that John's 
disciples were immersed in the Jordan, confessing their sins ! 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 161 



CHAPTER IX. 

Argument 9. — ^Apostolic allusions to Baptism. 

Our ninth argument in proof of Proposition I. is drawn from 
the apostolic allusions to baptism. In Eom. vi. 4, baptism is re- 
ferred to as a burial and a resurrection. See also in Col. ii. 

These passages read as follows: "Know you not, that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism 
into death ; that like as Christ was raised from the dead, we 
also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been 
planted in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the like- 
ness of his resurrection .'' Rom. vi. 3-5. Again says Paul, 
*' Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with 
him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised 
him from the dead.'^ Col. ii. 15. 

Notwithstanding Prof. M. Stuart has spiritualized away any 
allusion to immersion in these passages, and has been followed 
by all that class of our American clergy who regard him as one 
of the ablest and most orthodox of commentators ; and, notwith- 
standing some one or two others, who are the centres of inferior 
systems, concur with him ; — still I would be willing to have 
these passages interpreted by Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and 
other doctors of Pedobaptism. Beginning with Calvin and end- 
ing with the greatest oracle in all the Presbyterian ranks, in 
Britain or America, for once, I believe I shall deliver up this 
passage into their hands, without note or comment. 

Calvin : "^re you ignorant. The apostle proves that Christ 
destroys sin in his people from the effect of baptism, by which 
we are initiated into the faith of the Messiah. For we, without 
controversy, put on Christ in baptism, and are baptized on this 
condition, that we may be one with him. Paul thus assumes 
another principle, that we may then truly grow into the body of 
Christ when his death produces its own fruit in us who believe. 
Nay, he teaches us that this fellowship of his death is chiefly to 
be regarded in baptism, for washing alone is not proposed in 
this initiatory ordinance, but mortification, and the death of the 
old man ; whence the efficacy of Christ's death shows itself from 
the moment we are received into his grace." 

14*, 



162 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

Barnes: ^^ Therefore we are buried, &c. It is altogether pro- 
bable that the apostle in this place had allnsion to the custom 
of baptizing by immersion. This cannot, indeed, be proved, so 
as to be liable to no objection ; but I presume that this is the 
idea that would strike the great mass of unprejudiced readers.'' 

Locke : "We did own some kind of death by being buried un- 
der the water, which, being buried with him, L e. in conformity to 
his burial, as a confession of our being dead, was to signify that, 
as Christ was raised up from the dead into a glorious life with 
his Father, even so we, being raised from our typical death and 
burial in baptism, should lead a new sort of life, wholly different 
from our former, in some approaches towards that heavenly life 
that Christ is risen to.'' 

Wall : "As to the manner of baptism then generally used, the 
texts produced by every one that speaks of these matters, John 
iii. 23, Mark i. 5, Acts viii. 38, are undeniable proofs that the 
baptized person went ordinarily into the water, and sometimes 
the baptist too. We should not know from these accounts 
whether the whole body of the baptized was put under water, 
head and all, were it not for the two later proofs, which seem to 
me to PUT IT OUT OF question: One, that St. Paul does twice, in 
an allusive way of speaking, call baptism a burial ; the other, the 
customs of the Christians, in the near succeeding times, which, 
being more largely and particularly delivered in books, is known 
to have been generally, or ordinarily, a total immersion." 

Archbishop Tillotson : " Anciently, those who were baptized 
were immersed and buried in the water, to represent their death 
to sin ; and then did rise up out of the water, to signify their 
entrance upon a new life. And to these customs the apostle 
alludes, Rom. vi. 2-5." 

Archbishop Seeker : " Burying, as it were, the person bap- 
tized in the water, and raising him out again, without question, 
was anciently the more usual method ; on account of which St. 
Paul speaks of baptism as representing both the death, burial, 
and resurrection of Christ, and what is grounded on them, — our 
being dead and buried to sin, and our rising again to walk in 
newness of life." 

Sam. Clarke: "TFe are buried with Christ in baptism, &c. In 
the primitive times, the manner of baptizing was by immersion, 
or dipping the whole body into the water. And this manner of 
doing it was a very significant emblem of the dying and rising 
again, referred to by St. Paul, in the above mentioned simili- 
tude." 

Wells: "St. Paul here alludes to immersion, or dipping the 
whole body under water in baptism ; which, he intimates, did 
typify the death and burial (of the person baptized) to sin, and 
his rising up out of the water did typify his resurrection to new- 
ness of life." 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 163 

Bishop Nicholson: "In the grave with Christ we went not; 
for our bodies were not, could not be buried with his ; but 
in baptism, by a kind of analogy or resemblance, while our 
bodies are under the water, we may be said to be buried with 
him.'' 

Doddridge : ^^Buried with him in baptism. It seems the part 
of candour to confess, that here is an allusion to the matter of 
baptizing by immersion. '^ 

George Whitefield : " It is certain that in the words of our 
text, Kom. vi. 3, 4, there is an allusion to the manner of baptism, 
which was by immersion, which is what our own church al- 
lows,'' &c. 

John Wesley: ** Buried with him — alluding to the ancient 
manner of baptizing by immersion.'' 

Whitby : "It being so expressly declared here, Eom. vi. 4, 
and Col. ii. 12, that we are buried with Christ in baptism, by 
being buried under water ; and the argument to oblige us to a 
conformity to his death, by dying to sin, being taken hence ; 
and this immersion being religiously observed by all Christians 
for thirteen centuries, and approved by our Church, and the 
change of it into sprinkling, even without any allowance from 
the author of this institution, or any licence from any council of 
the church, being that which the Romanist still urges to justify 
his refusal of the cup to the laity ; it were to be wished that this 
custom might be again of general use, and aspersion only per- 
mitted, as of old, in case of the clinici, or in present danger of 
death." 

Macknight : '^Planted together in the likeness of his death. The 
burying of Chrigt, and of believers, first in the water of baptism 
and afterwards in the earth, is fitly enough compared to the 
planting of seeds in the earth, because the efibct, in both cases, 
IS a reviviscence to a state of greater perfection." 

Assembly of Divines: *^^Ifwe have been planted together/ 
&c. By this elegant similitude, the apostle represents to us, 
that, as a plant that is set in the earth lieth as dead and im- 
movable for a time, but after springs up and flourishes, so 
Christ's body lay dead for a while in the grave, but sprang up 
and flourished in his resurrection ; and we also, when we are 
baptized, are buried, as it were, in the water for a time, but after 
are raised up to newness of life." 

I cannot find room for the witnesses which I could accumu- 
late on this point. Concurrent with these are Grotius, Beza, 
Bloomfield, Koppe, RosenmuUer, &c. I will conclude this vene- 
rable, learned, and highly authoritative list, with the most dis- 
tinguished Presbyterian preacher of our day. In the recent 
** Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans/' the justly honoured 



164 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

Thomas Chalmers, D. D. and LL. D., boldly and independently 
thus expresses himself, on chap. vi. 4 : — 

" The original meaning of the word baptism is immersion ; 
and, though we regard it as a point of indifferency, whether the 
ordinance so named be performed in this way or by sprinkling — 
yet we doubt not that the prevalent style of the administration 
in the apostles' days was by an actual submerging of the whole 
body under water. We advert to this for the purpose of throw- 
ing light on the analogy that is instituted in these verses. Jesus 
Christ, by death, underwent this sort of baptism by an immersion 
under the surface of the ground, whence he soon emerged again 
by his resurrection. "We, by being baptized into his death, are con- 
ceived to have made a similar translation. In the act of descend- 
ing under the water of baptism to have resigned an old life, and 
in the act of ascending to emerge into a second or a new life — 
along the course of which it is our part to maintain a strenuous 
avoidance of that sin which as good as expunged the being that 
we had formerly ; and a strenuous prosecution of that holiness 
which should begin with the first moment that we were ushered 
into our present being, and be perpetuated and made progress 
toward the perfection of full and ripened immortality.'^ 

This is one of the best arguments for universal consumption. 
All do not, — all cannot understand Greek criticism. But when 
Paul explains baptism thus allusively, by comparing it with a 
burial and a planting, (as seeds in the same bed — for so sunphu- 
toi intimates,) all plain, common-sense men can fully appreciate 
how the Apostle understood the matter. I ha«^e given no com- 
ment of my own on Kom. vi. 4 ; Col. ii. 12. I have given one 
wholly from the other side. I will only say, that when any of 
the Liliputians of the present day preach against this view of 
Rom. vi., it might be a good argument to their modesty to re- 
mind them of what Calvin and this host, down to Chalmers, 
have said. 

After hearing these (certainly to us) impartial witnesses, it 
might be gratifying to some Pedobaptists to hear one of the 
most reckless, daring, and consequential of American doctors 
^^assure^^ his people, that their sprinkling is just the very thing 
that ought to satisfy them. Dr. Miller of Princeton says : — 

*' I am aware, indeed, that our Baptist brethren, as before in- 
timated, believe, and confidently assert, that the only legitimate 
and authorized meaning of this word is to immerse ; and that it 
is never employed, in a single case, in any part of the Bible, to 
express the application of water in any other manner. lean ven- 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 165 

imey my friends, to assure you, with the utmost confidence, that 
this representation is wholly incorrect. I can assur^e you, that 
the word which we render baptize does legitimately signify the 
application of water in any way, as well as by immersion. Nay, 
I can assure you, if the most mature and competent Greek scho- 
lars that ever lived may be allowed to decide in this case, that 
many examples of the use of this word occur in Scripture, in 
which it not only may, but manifestly must signify sprinkling, 
perfusion, or washing in any way. 

*■ Now, we contend that this word does not necessarily, nor 
even commonly, signify to immerse ; but also implies to wash, 
to sprinkle, to pour on water, and to tinge or dye with any 
liquid ; and, therefore, accords very well with the mode of bap- 
tism by sprinkling or aiffusion.'' 

I am, in duty, bound to say, after confronting Prof. Miller of 
Princeton with this mighty host, that in all my readings on 
baptism, and they are not meagre, I have not met with any 
writer of any pretensions, so regardless of his own character 
for learning, for skill in criticism, for knowledge of language, 
for a strict regard to truth, for historical accuracy, whether 
on the subject or action of baptism, as this said Dr. Miller 
of Princeton. His little book on baptism is really one of the 
weakest, most puerile, most ill-natured, uncandid performances 
I have ever read; — ^the most unworthy performance for any pro- 
fessor in a theological school, in a denomination aspiring after 
literary eminence, that can well be found in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. I make no comments on the passages above quoted. I 
simply place them in contrast with his own Calvin, and all 
between him and his Scotch brother, Chalmers. The contrast 
alone is enough for one lesson. 



166 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 



CHAPTER X. 

Argument 10. — Passages urged against immersion from the use of hap- 
tizo and baptismos in certain places. 

My tenth argument shall be deduced from those passages 
which Pedobaptists usually urge against haptizo and bapiismaf 
as not indicating immersion. The very passages which they 
quote against our views, together with their efforts at explaining 
them away, greatly confirm and establish our conclusions. We 
shall commence with Mark vii. 3, 4, and Luke xi. 38 : Except 
they wash their hands oft, eat not. And when they come from 
market, except they wash [baptisoontai) they eat not. And 
many such things they hold, as the washings (haptismous) of 
cups, pots, brazen vessels, and beds (or couches). Luke xi. 38 : 
The Pharisees wondered that Jesus had not washed (ebaptisthe) 
before dinner. 

These washings before dinner, reported by Mark and Luke, 
contain the only two instances in which any part of haptizo is 
ever translated by wasJi, in the New Testament. And, fortu- 
nately, the antithesis between the washings here mentioned, 
indicated by the words employed in the original, and the facts 
stated, not only does not sustain the common version in trans- 
lating both words by the same word, wash; but clearly inti- 
mates that the latter term, haptizo , ought here to have been ren- 
dered imme-rse. In verse 3d, it is nipto with pugmee, a word 
already shown to mean washing the hands, face, or feet, always 
when applied to the human person. This is true in every case 
in the Bible. Moreover, it has pugmee, the fist, in construction 
with it; that is, as Lightfoot and others interpret it, to the 
wrist, or so far as the fist extends. When the hand is shut, says 
Pollux, as quoted by Carson, the outside is called pugmee,^ 
Now, as this limits the first washing, the second, being ex- 
pressed by haptizo, and having no part of the body mentioned 
as its peculiar regimen, according to the usage of the Greeks, 
(and the Romans, in the case of lavo,) the whole body is meant. 
Hence, they dip or bathe themselves after being to market; 
whereas, ordinarily, they wash their hands only up to the wrist. 

* Page 102. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 167 

Both Campbell and Macknight* translated the word in this 
passage, immerse. Some of our lexicons, such as Schleusner's, 
Scapula's, Stokius's, &c., quote this passage in proof that wash* 
ing is sometimes the effect of immersion. The meaning of hap^ 
tisoontai, here, as in Luke xi. 38, being thus clearly indicated, 
(for Luke speaks of the same custom as Mark,) we have, then, 
found baptizOf in its eighty occurrences in the New Testament, 
uniformly signifying immersion; and never sprinkling nor pour- 
ing. 

Baptismos is also translated washing, in Heb. ix. 2, as well as 
in Mark vii. 4. The diverse washings of cups, pots, brazen ves- 
sels, tables, couches, persons, and things mentioned among the 
traditions of the elders and the institutions of the law, were for 
ceremonial cleansing. Hence, all by immersion ; inasmuch as 
nothing was ever cleansed, since the world began, by sprinkling 
water upon it. Meantime, I assume this fact, but I will hereafter 
demonstrate it: — Macknight and Campbell were much more 
learned in the true meaning of this word than the whole college 
of the king's translators. Macknight translates the ^^ diverse 
washings^' of the common version by ^^ diverse immersions,^* 
Heb. ix. 2. 

Baptismos is never applied to the Christian ordinance, — hap-^ 
tisma generally ; and, therefore, our translators never translated 
the latter but by baptism, and baptismos three times by wash-* 
ing. We have, then, in one hundred and twenty occurrences 
of baptizo, baptismos, baptisma, and baptistees, not found a single 
exception. 

But we find bapto, in Daniel, in some of its flexions, twice 
translated wet; and that, too, by the dew of heaven ! It was, 
then, a general wetting — ^profuse as immersion ; and this me- 
tonymy, of the effect for the cause, clearly indicates that in the 
days of the Septuagint, the idea of sprinkling was never asso- 
ciated with bapto. Dews are more wetting in this country, — 
much more so in Asia, in the environs of the Euphrates, — than 
any Pedobaptist sprinkling since the council of Kavenna. Soak- 
ing, wetting, dyeing, colouring, and even washing, it has always 
been conceded, are frequent meanings of bapto ; because, as all 
the dictionaries explain, these processes are accomplished by 
immersing. Indeed, these metaphors all go to show that immer- 

* Macknigbt's Harmony of the Four Gospels, Mark vii. 



168 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

sion was the proper and fixed meaning of the term ; for, unless 
things were covered in some way, they could neither be dyed, 
coloured, washed, soaked, or even thoroughly wet. 

But it is frequently urged, with great vehemence, that the bap- 
tism of the Holy Spirit, promised in the New Testament, was 
said to be accomplished by pouring out of the Spirit ; and, 
hence, pouring is the true baptism ! This passes for conclusive 
logic with thousands ; and yet nothing is much more prepos- 
terous. There can, possibly, be no analogy between the pour- 
ing of water and the pouring out of the Spirit. There is no 
resemblance between the Spirit and water; and, consequently, 
there can be none in the pouring of them out. But the Spirit 
of God is compared to a well of water springing up within us. 
Is that baptism, by the force of comparison ? If so, the Spirit 
is compared to the wind blowing; and it is compared to a per- 
son breathing upon another, &c. Shall we, then, say that any, 
or all of these, are supposed to resemble baptism? Many other 
such phrases there are ; and, certainly there is as much pro- 
priety in supposing that breathing, blowing, or springing up are 
quite as analogous to baptism as pouring out ; and that, if pour- 
ing be baptism, then are breathing, blowing, and springing up, 
baptism ! ! 

But pouring out of the Spirit is never called baptism. It is, 
strictly, the preparation for it ; just as the tanner or the fuller 
pours out water into his vat, in order to prepare for immersing 
into it the subjects of these processes. So God poured out the 
gifts of the Spirit most copiously on Pentecost, that the disci- 
ples might be subjected to, or immersed in, all these influences ! 
Such is my understanding of a very bold metaphor. But, as I 
am so fond of Pedobaptist authority, I shall show that some of 
the most learned of them are with us here also. 

I find a rich cluster of these Pedobaptist grapes, just ready 
to my hand, in Booth's Reply to Dr. Williams ; and I will just 
transfer it, leaves and all, to my page. 

Gurtlerus: " Baptism in the Holy Spirit, is immersion into the 
pure waters of the Holy Spirit ; or a rich and abundant com- 
munication of his gifts. For he on whom the Holy Spirit is 
poured out, is, as it were, immersed into him.'' 

Bp. Reynolds : " The Spirit, under the gospel, is compared — 
to water : and that not a little measure, to sprinkle, or bedew, 
but to BAPTIZE the faithful in, (Matt. iii. 11 ; Acts i. 5 ;) and 



pll 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 169 

that not in a font, or vessel, which grows less and less, but in a 
spring, or living river/' 

Ikenius : "The Greek word, baptismos, denotes the immersion 
of a thing, or a person, into something. Here, also, [Matt. iii. 
11, compared with Luke iii. 16,] the baptism of Jirey or that 
which is performed in fire, must signify, according to the same 
simplicity of the letter, an immission^ or immersion, into fire — 
and this the rather, because here, to baptize in the Spirit and in 
jire are not only not connected, but also opposed to being bap- 
tized in water J' 

Le Clerc: "jBTe sliall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, As I 
lunge you in water, he shall plunge you, so to speak, in the 
'oly Spirit." 

Casaubon : " To baptize is to immerse — and in this sense th%> 
apostles are truly said to be baptized ; for the house in which 
this was done was filled with the Holy Ghost, so that the apos- 
tles seemed to be plunged into it, as into a fish-pool." 

Grotius : " To be baptized, here, is not to be slightly sprinkled ; 
but to have the Holy Spirit abundantly poured upon them." 

Mr. Leigh : " Baptized ; that is, drown you all over, dip you 
into the ocean of his grace ; opposite to the sprinkling which 
was in the law." 

Abp. Tillotson: "JjJ [the sound from heaven. Acts ii. 2]yilled 
all the house. This is that which our Saviour calls baptizing 
with the Holy Ghost. So that they who sat in the house were, 
as it were, immersed in the Holy Ghost, as they who were 
buried with water, were overwhelmed and covered all over with 
water, which is the proper notion of baptism." 

Bp. Hopkins : " Those that are baptized with the Spirit are, 
as it were, plunged into that heavenly flame, whose searching 
energy devours all their dross, tin, and base alloy." 

Mr. H. Dodwell : "The words of our Saviour were made good, 
Ye shall be baptized (plunged or covered) with the Holy Spirit, 
as John baptized with water, without it." 

" Thus modern Pedobaptists who practised pouring or sprink- 
ling. Let us now hear one of the ancients, who wrote in the 
Greek language and practised immersion. Cyril, of Jerusalem, 
who lived in the fourth century, speaks in the following man- 
mer : — * As he who is plunged in water and baptized, is encom- 
passed by the water on every side, so are they that are wholly 
baptized by the Spirit. There [under the Mosaic economy] the 
servants of God were partakers of the Holy Spirit ; but here 
they were perfectly baptized, or immersed of him.' These tes- 
timonies are quite sufficient, one would imagine, to vindicate our 
sense of the term baptize, when used allusively with reference to 
the gifts and influences of the Holy Spirit." 

If, then, 80 many learned Pedobaptists can themselves recon- 

15 



170 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

cile this style to immersion, why should any of them complain 
of our so attempting? One question more. If baptism be 
pouring, why do they sprinkle f Are pouring and sprinkling 
the same action? 

But I have yet another objection from which an argument 
may be drawn: — "Arise, and be baptized, Saul, said Ananias; 
and Saul arose and was baptized/' A clear proof that Paul 
was baptized standing ; consequently, not immersed ! I 

In Luke's writings alone, we have this idiom eight times — 
AnastaSf with an imperative immediately following, and without 
a conjunction or a comma, is found in Luke xvii. 19 ; xxii. 46 ; 
Acts ix. 11 ; X. 13, 20 ; xi. 7 ; xxii. 10, 16. In every instance, 
it indicates a divine command from the Lord in person, or from 
a supernatural agent acting for him. Nothing expressed by the 
term me, different from the action to be performed. In no in- 
stance does the precept arise terminate the action. It never 
means two actions in any one case. It is not arise and be bap- 
tized. It is an idiom of expressing one immediate action. 

The idiom always changes when an action different from 
rising up is intended. Another imperative form, with a copula- 
tive of some kind, intimates two actions : Acts viii. 26 ; ix. 6, 
34 ; xxvi. 16. In all these it is anasteethiy followed by a copu- 
lative, rise and stand upon thy feet, rise and go into the city, 
&c. In these last cases, there is something more than mere 
earnestness and authority expressed. There are two distinct 
imperatives : do this and do that. But anastas poreiiouo is quite 
a different idiom. In this case, 7'ising is no more than an ad- 
junct. It is not a distinct precept ; therefore, it is never ren- 
dered stand up. 

Almost every orator, indeed, in a persuasive and exhortatory 
address, in our language, uses the term rise when an erect posi- 
tion or a mere change of position is never thought of. In this 
way, it is used ten times for one in any other sense, especially 
in warm and ardent appeals : — Rise, citizens ! — rise, sinners ! — 
rise, men and let us do our duty. In this common sense import 
of the term did Ananias address Paul. 

From the whole premises, I argue that if Ananias intended to 
sprinkle Paul, he would not have commanded him to rise and be 
baptized. For immersion, he must go to the water ; for sprink- 
ling, the water could have been brought to him. The efforts 
made by some Pedobaptists to make it appear from this passage 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 171 

that Paul was baptized standing up are alike indicative of their 
humble attainments in Greek literature, as well as of the invete- 
racy of their prejudices. No man, so far as known to me, of 
any eminence for Greek literature, has ever made such an at- 
tempt. When all the objections against immersion are consi- 
dered, one by one, we may conclude, with Professor Stuart — 

" For myself, then, I cheerfully admit, that haptizo, in the 
New Testament, when applied to the rite of baptism, does in all 
probability involve the idea that this rite was usually performed 
by immersion, but not always." 

The three last words, " hut not always, ^^ founded on such pas- 
sages as I have examined, are built upon too slender a basis for 
so strong a man. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Argument 11. — Legal Sprinklings. 

My eleventh argument in proof of the proposition before us 
is drawn from the fact — that sprinkling and pouring mere 

WATER ON ANY PERSON OR THING FOR ANY MORAL, CEREMONIAL, OR 
RELIGIOUS USE, WAS NEVER DONE BY THE AUTHORITY OF GOD SINCE 

THE WORLD BEGAN. Let HO ouc be startlcd at the novelty of the 
announcement of this fact. I am aware that it has been over- 
looked in all the books written upon the subject, and in all the 
discussions of the question that have ever fallen under my ob- 
servation. It is, however, on that account no less true — no less 
important. In truth, if this point be established, it is an end of 
the controversy among Protestants. If, then, I sustain this fact, 
I shall, in my humble opinion, have achieved a service to the 
cause of truth of paramount importance. It will put an end to 
this everlasting strife about foreign authorities, Greek verbs, 
nouns, and prepositions. It will decide the wavering — it will 
strengthen the weak — ^it will confound opposition — it will 
silence every demur. Some may, in the first instance, laugh at 
it ; some may affect to disparage it ; but I know too much of hu- 
man nature — of the conscientious — to think that any one at all 
interested in knowing and doing the Master's will, can ever 



172 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

rest satisfied with himself, so long as he makes light of such a 
fact as that now before us. 

The law of Moses, the typical dispensations, the ceremonial 
cleansings, the "diverse washings,'' as they call them, once 
divinely instituted, have never yet occupied that place in theolo- 
gical schools, in the systems of public instruction, either in the 
congregation or in the halls of divinity, that they merit. An in- 
timate knowledge of the five books of Moses will elucidate the 
Christian religion more fully and more satisfactorily than all the 
theological libraries in Christendom, in the absence of that 
knowledge. 

It is, indeed, assumed that Christianity is a sort of continua- 
tion of Judaism enlarged and improved, without its bloody rites, 
but retaining its sprinklings or washings with water as a sort 
of refined ceremonial — an evangelico-legal purification. I am 
Borry to see that '^holy water" is still popular with more than 
Roman Catholics, and that the sprinklings of the law have 
been mistaken for a kind of holy water aspersions and ablutions. 

Mere water, I again assert, was never sprinkled on man, 
woman, or child by any divine warrant or formulary, under any 
dispensation of religion. Patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian. 
Here, then, is the Law and the Testimony. Let an example be 
produced. 

Blood was sprinkled, and water mingled with blood, or with 
the ashes of a blood-red heifer, called sometimes clean or pure 
water, a contraction for " the water of purification,'' " the water 
of separation," " the water of cleansing." And strange though 
it may appear, some commentators have wholly misconceived!' 
the phrase clean watevy not discriminating between the Gentile 
and Jewish sense of those terms : yet to confound the true Lord 
with the " lords many" of Gentilism, is not more warrantable 
than to confound "clean water" with water free from any fo- 
reign admixture. Reference can be had to every passage in the 
Bible on this subject. I have examined them one by one ; and 
here is the sum of them. 

Water was never poured, in any instance, upon a human be- 
ing in virtue of any statute, law, or regulation of divine au- 
thority, for the purpose of sanctifying, purifying, or cleansing 
him frommny kind of legal, ceremonial, or moral pollution — for 
the sake of healing him or cleansing him from any malady, 
physical or mental. Water mingled with ashes is commanded 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 173 

to be sprinkled, as a water of separation, or of cleansing per- 
sons polluted by any contact with things forbidden or declared 
unclean. The only passages in the Bible, Old Testament or 
New, in which this subject is mentioned, are — Num. viii. and 
7th : '^ Sprinkle water of purifying [sin-water in the margin] 
upon them, [the Levites,] and let them shave all their flesh, and 
let them wash their clothes and make themselves clean.'^ 
Again, Num. xix. 13th, 18th, 19th, and 21st verses. The manu- 
facture of this " sin-water,^' or water of purification — the law 
of the red heifer without spot, and the preparation of her ashes, 
and the manner of them, are detailed in this chapter. These 
four passages are the only passages in the law of Moses that 
speak of sprinkling water. Allusion to this " clean" or " cleans- 
ing water" is found once, and only once in the Prophets— 
*' Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you." Ezekiel xxxvi. 
25.^ 

In the New Testament, we find the term " sprinkle" only 
seven times. Heb. ix. 19, 21, " Moses sprinkled both the book 
and all the people with blood." Heb. x. 22, "Having our 
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed 
with pure water." In Heb. ix. 12, we have an allusion to the 
red heifer: "The ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean." 
Heb. xi. 28 also affords another instance : " Moses kept the 
sprinkling of blood." And Heb. xii. 24 alludes to the " blood 
sprinkling." While Peter, in his 1st Epistle, i. 2, alludes to 
the sprinkling of Christ's blood. So that sprinkling of water 
receives no countenance whatever from the New Testament. 

We have, indeed, diverse bathings in water alone, though no 



* I have left out one occurrence of the word sprinkle, because of its doubtful in- 
terpretation. It is found Isaiah Hi. 15: " So shall he sprinkle many nations." Ju- 
nius and Tremellius, for whose learning and general critical acumen in their Latin 
version, lying before me, London edition, 1581, 1 have a high respect, thus render 
it : — Ita persperget stupore gentes muUas — " So shall he astonish (sprinkle with 
astonishment) many nations." The Septuagint uses thaumasontai — " So shall he as- 
tonish many nations." And in the five other versions of Bagster's Hexapla, equi- 
valent terms are employed. Adam Clark observes on this passage : "I retain the 
common rendering, though I am by no means satisfied with it. Tazzeh, frequent 
in the law, means only to sprinkle ; but the water sprinkled is the accusative case, 
the thing on which has al or el. Thaumasontai makes the best apodosisJ' So think 
I. The connection would be more consistent. " So shall he astonish many nations." 
"The kings shall shut their mouth at him." But Lowth has it, "So shall he 
sprinkle with his blood many nations." So far as my position is concerned, any 
translation is equal. 

15* 



174 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

sprinkling of water alone, in the Law. In Leviticus, chapter xv. 
verses 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16, 18, 21, 22, 27. Here are ten diverse 
bathings in one chapter. The whole flesh is said to be bathed, 
or the whole person bathed, in order to cleansing. 

Also, Lev. xvi. 26, 28, there are two other bathings in order 
to cleansing — he that carried off the scape-goat, and he that 
burned the remains of the offerings of the great day of atone- 
ment. In Lev. xvii. 15, 16, another bathing of the person and 
a washing of the clothes for purification. In Num. also, xix. 
7, 8, 19, we have three other bathings in order to cleansing. In 
all, we have sixteen distinct bathings mentioned in order to pu- 
rification. These washings or bathings are uniformly expressed 
by louo, and contrasted with pourings and sprinklings. How 
the bathing was accomplished we are not told, only that it was 
not done by sprinkling nor pouring. These are therefore called 
by Paul " diverse baptisms," or baptisms on diverse occasions. 

How any man of the learning of Professor Stuart, and his 
critical discrimination, could have overlooked the fact that 
sprinklings are never alluded to in these diverse bathings re- 
ported by Moses, but in fact are sometimes placed in antithesis 
with them, is a singular oversight, attributable, I presume, to 
his taking for granted that the diverse washings of Paul might 
cover the whole ground of Jewish ablutions. But this most 
clearly is not the fact.* 

* In alluding to the learning and candour of Professor Stuart, of Andover, for 
both of which I cherish a very high respect, I would not be understood as at all 
regarding either as perfect. His elaborate essay on Baptism is frequently defective 
in candour, and is not wholly exempt from errors and imperfections in a literary 
point of view. Some of these have already been pointed out by Messrs. Judd and 
Eipley and others. He does not always honour his own rules of interpretation by 
a rigid compliance with them. A few specifications are all that we have room for. 
The Professor, page 318 of the Biblical Repository, proposes to show that baptize 
sometimes intimates copious affusion as well as immersion ; but never gives, in all 
his elaborate inductions, a single example — because, as I honestly presume, he 
could not. 

He avers that classic authors usually employ eis after baptize, to indicate plung- 
ing, and yet he translates it himself plunge without ew, and fails to prove the 
generality of the usage. 

While contending that eis ton Jordanee {into the Jordan) would be the proper 
construction after baptizo, if immersion were intended, — on finding a case of that 
sort, (Mark i. 9,) he will not admit it to be a full evidence of immersion. In fact, 
nothing could prove to him that it certainly was the primitive practice ; although 
to him it is extremely probable — almost certain — wanting, no one can see, how 
little of full assurance. He seems to make eis with an accusative denote instru- 
mentality, a case unprecedented in philology, in rendering eis ton Jordaneen with 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 175 

There yet, indeed, remains another fact of much significance 
and authority in this discussion, and which still farther explodes 
the notion of any ablutions being performed by sprinkling even 
the water of purification alone. It is this, that no one legally 

THE Jordan ; and in alleging that "the phrase may designate the element with 
■which John performed the rite." 

At another time, he will not have our Lord to emerge from the water of Jordan, 
neither hy the force of haptizo nor andbaino. Immersion does not imply emer- 
sion, and andbaino does not anywhere mean to emerge or escape out of the water, 
especially in the New Testament usages. " As to emerging out of water," says 
Mr. Stuart, " I can find no such meaning attached to andbaino;" yet, as Mr. Judd 
has shown, it is so found repeatedly. In the epistle of Barnabas, sec. 11, "There 
was a river, and anabainen ex autou — and out of it rose beautiful trees." And 
Matt. xvi. 27, " Take up the first fish that cometh up out of the sea" — andbanta. 
Also, Rev. xiii. 1, " I saw a beast rising up out of the sea — ek tees thalassees anor 
bainon — the same idiom with the Septuagint, when the witch of Endor describes 
Baul anabainonta ek tees gees — ascending out of the earth ; theous anabainontas ek 
tees gees — gods ascending out of the earth." Judd's Review, page 49. 

With Professor Stuart, apo will not bring a person out of a liquid. He has found 
"no place where it is applied to denote a movement out of liquid into the air." 
But others have found such examples: Homer makes Aurora to rise up, ap 
okeanoUy II. xix. 1. A fish, in Tobit vi. 2 leaped apo ton potamou, from the river. 
It is therefore a clear case, as Dr. Campbell long since proved, that andbaino will 
represent an emerging from water. Judd, page 50. Many similar defects can be 
collected out of this essay, of a philological character. But I will only notice a 
more serious imputation, — ^the want of candour. Take the following for example :— 

" He supposes that katebesan amphoteroi eis to udor does neither necessarily nor 
probably mean, they descended into the water. After citing several examples in 
proof that eis means to or towards, in every one of which it most clearly signifies 
intOf he remarks on the verb, " that when one analyzes the idea of katabainon, 
going down, descending, he finds it indicates the action performed before reaching a 
place, the approximation to it by descent, and not the entering into it ; so that 
whether the person thus going down, eis to udor, enters into it or not, must be 
designated in some other way than by this expression." 

This is just as conclusive as though one were to take the English expression, 
they descended into the water, and contend that it does not mean, they went d(ywn 
into the water ; because when one analyzes the idea of descending^ he finds that it 
indicates the action performed before reaching a place, approximation to it, and not 
the entering into it. It is not pretended that the verb of itself expresses entering 
into ; but if katabaino, to descend, in connexion with eis, into, does not express en- 
tering into, 1 ask, what phraseology can be found in the language that will express 
it ? The same liberty that is taken with Scripture, in frittering away its meaning 
in regard to baptism, if carried through, would unsettle at once the most import- 
ant doctrines of the Bible, annihilating alike the hopes of the righteous and the 
fears of the wicked. For what evidence would remain to us that the latter will 
at last go away into everlasting punishment, or the former into life eternal $ It 
might be said, with just as much propriety in the one case as the other, that eis 
means to or towards, and that whether the righteous are actually received into 
heaven, or the wicked turned into heU, must be designated by some other expression 
than this. But such an unwarrantable license with the Scripture cannot fail to 
receive the disapprobation of every conscientious reader. 



176 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

polluted, ceremonially unclean, was ever cleansed, even by the 
water of purifying itself. They had all to be bathed or im- 
mersed before they could enter into the congregation or the 
(sanctuary of the Lord. 

On the verity and correctness of these statements much, very 
much, depends. If they are as reported, and that they assur- 
edly are, where has sprinkling water any authority from the 
Bible ? Has it any countenance from the Law ? Has it any 
from the Prophets ? Has it any from the Apostles and Evan- 
gelists of Jesus Christ? If it have, who will name the passage? 
There is not one, from Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse. 
Is this the first time that sprinkling water in the name of the 
Lord has been driven out of the Bible, without one shadow of 
countenance from any rite, ceremony, or ordinance. Patriarchal, 
Jewish, or Christian? That these legal bathings were neither 
sprinklings nor pourings, is already proved. That they were 
immersions is very obvious, from one fact : The leprous had 
always to bathe himself after being sprinkled with the water 
of separation. Louo is, therefore, always used. Now, when 



"But,'* says Professor Stuart, "I have another remark to make on katebesan 
amphoteroi eis to udor, they both went down to the water. This is, that if katebesan 
eis to udor is meant to designate the action of plunging or hcing immersed into the 
water, as a part of the rite of baptism, then was Philip baptized as well as the 
eunuch ; for the sacred writer says that both went into the water. Here then must 
have been a rebaptism of Philip ; and, what is at least singular, he must have bap- 
tized himself, as well as the eunuch. All these considerations together show, that 
the going down to the water, and the going up from the water, constituted no part of 
the rite of baptism itself; for Philip did the one and the other just as truly as the 
eunuch." I had little expected any thing so disingenuous from Professor Stuart. 
There is neither reason nor candour in the remark. • It is egregious trifling ; and 
that, too, on a subject where we had reason to expect at least common sincerity 
and fair argument. Who supposes that the walking down into the water is meant 
to indicate the action of plunging, as a part of the rite of baptism? No Baptist 
ever suggested such an idea. The writer says they went down both into the watar, 
both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. Here were two distinct actions : 
the first, that of going down into the water, in which both Philip and the eunuch 
were agents ; and the second, that of baptism, in which Philip was the agent, and 
the eunuch the subject. What we claim is, that the baptism was performed intJiC 
water, subsequently to their going down into it, and previously to coming up 
out of it ; and this circumstance furnishes strong proof of immersion, inasmuch as 
it is incredible that Philip and the eunuch would both have gone down into the 
water merely for the purpose of sprinkling.^' Judd's Review, pp. 61, 62. 

It gives me pain rather than pleasure to expose these frailties of one so deserved- 
ly eminent in biblical criticism. They are indeed another evidence that no man 
can either make error consistent with itself, nor himself consistent with himself 
while at cue time reasoning with, and at another time without, bias. 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 177 

Naaman, the Assyrian leper, came to Elisha to be cleansed, he 
commanded him to bathe (louo) in Jordan seven times. He uses 
the same word found in the case of the leper. How this word 
was understood may be learned from the fact, that he dipped 
himself seven times in the Jordan. According to all the evi- 
dence now before us, and, indeed, from all that is written in the 
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the following conclusions are 
ascertained facts: — That upon persons and things blood was 
sprinkled; on the human person or head oil was poured; but 
water was never religiously sprinkled or poured ; but the wash- 
ing or immersing in it was the universal — the immutable prac- 
tice since the world began. 

Blood had primary respect to guilt; therefore, it was sprinkled. 
Oil had primary respect to the Spirit ; therefore, it was poured 
out. Water had primary respect to cleansing the person from 
pollution; therefore, immersion or bathing in it was always 
obligatory on those who sought personal cleansing from legal or 
any other sort of uncleanness. 

Touching the meaping of the blood-red heifer and her ashes, 
it is important to know that blood could not be sprinkled only 
when warm ; therefore, neither by itself nor in water was it 
adapted to aspersion. But, to show that its virtue was not mo- 
mentary as its heat, and that the atoning ejficacy of sacrifice 
continued long after the death of the victim, the burning of the 
heifer and the preservation of her ashes for an age was an ad- 
mirable provision. And, because many are to partake in the 
efficacy of one sacrifice, the joint distribution of it was beauti- 
fully adumbrated by the action of sprinkling. Good reasons 
can be given for the three actions, sprinkling, pouring, dipping ; 
and for their never being confounded in Holy Writ. The heart 
is sprinkled, the head anointed, and the body bathed. Infant 
or adult sprinkling with water is a papal legend, an idle cere- 
mony, without a shadow of evidence in Old Testament or New.* 

* It is worthy of note, that these actions under the law were always on persons 
already members ; and not to make them such. 



178 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Argument 12. — Convertible Terms. 

For the special benefit of the more uneducated, I shall deduce 
my twelfth argument for immersion from the first precept of 
the decalogue of philology. That precept, according to my copy, 
reads thus : — The definition of a word and the word itself are 
always convertible terms. For example : — a law is a rule of ac- 
tion — is equivalent to saying, a rule of action is a law, Philanr 
thropy is the love of man — is equivalent to saying, the love of man 
is philanthropy. Now, if a definition, or translation, (which is 
the same thing,) be correct, the definition, if substituted for the 
term defined, will always make good sense, and be congruous 
with all the words in construction. 

In order, then, to test the correctness of any definition or 
translation, we have only to substitute it in the place of the ori- 
ginal word defined or translated. If, in all places, the definition 
makes good sense, that is, if it be convertible with the word 
defined, it is correct ; if not, it is incorrect. Let any one un- 
acquainted with Greek take a New Testament, beginning with 
the first occurrence of haptizo, or any of its family, and always 
substitute for it the definition or translation given, and, if it be 
the correct one, it will make sense ; good, intelligible sense, in 
every instance. 

We, then, read: — "In those days, the Jews of Jerusalem and 
Judea went out to John, and were sprinkled by him in the Jor- 
dan, confessing their sins.'^ To perceive the impossibility of 
such an occurrence, it is only necessary to know that the word 
sprinkle is always followed by the substance sprinkled, and 
next by the object. We can sprinkle ashes, dust, water, or 
blood, &c., because the particles can be severed with ease ; but 
can we sprinkle a man? We may sprinkle something upon him; 
but it is impossible for any man to sprinkle another in a river ; 
and it is equally so to sprinkle the river upon him. The same 
reasoning will apply to pour. This verb is also to be followed 
by the substance poured. Now, was it not impossible to pour 
the Jews in the Jordan, or anywhere else ? And to pour the 
Jordan upon them would be as unacceptable to them as it would 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 179 

have been impossible for the Baptist. It remains, then, that wo 
try the word immerse. That, too, is followed by the substance to 
be immersed. Now, a man can be immersed in water, in oil, 
in sand, in grief, in debt, or in the Spirit ; though it is impos- 
sible to pour him into any one of these. Having, then, sub- 
jected these three to the same law of trial, two are condemned 
and reprobate: one only is possible, desirable, and reason- 
able. 

This test will hold to the end of the volume ; even where the 
association may appear strange and uncouth in style, it will 
always be not only practicable in fact, but good in meaning. 
For example : Jesus was to baptize in the Holy Spirit. The 
influence of the Spirit poured out fills some place ; into that 
persons may be immersed : as we are said to be immersed in 
debt, in afliction, in any special trouble ; but a person cannot 
be poured or sprinkled into these. Such an operation is always 
impossible, under any view, literal or figurative. 

Let it be carefully noted, in this most useful test, that the 
three words are all to be subjected to the same laws. 1st. The 
material is always to follow the verb. 2d. The place, or thing, 
or relation into which the action is to be performed is to follow 
the material. In baptism, the material is a man ; the element, 
water. Now, as John cannot pour the material James, neither 
can he sprinkle him ; but he can immerse him in a river, in 
debt, in grief, &c. It is highly improper and ungrammatical to 
use such a phrase, unless by special agreement of the parties 
present. 

Some persons, accustomed to a very loose style, see no impro- 
priety in the phrase, " sprinkle him — pour him,'' because of the 
supplement in their own minds. They think of the material 
which is sprinkled or poured upon him, and, for brevity's sake, 
say sprinkle him ; that is, sprinkle dust or water upon him. 
But, in testing the propriety of such phrases, the ellipsis must 
be supplied. There is no ellipsis in '^immerse Tiimi^ but there 
is always in sprinlde or pour Mm, The material is suppressed, 
because it is supposed to be understood, as in the case — sprinkle 
clean water upon him. Now, while the abbreviation may be 
tolerated, so far as time is concerned, it is intolerable in physi- 
cal and grammatical propriety ; because it is physically impos- 
sible to scatter a man into particles like dust, or to pour him 
out like water ; and it is grammatically improper to suppress 



180 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

the proper object of the verb, and to place after it a word not 
governed by it. 

Before submitting my next argument on this proposition, I 
beg leave to introduce the special testimony of one of America's 
most eminent classic scholars. I believe I only accord with en- 
lightened public opinion, when I introduce Professor Charles 
Anthon, of Columbia College, New York, as one of the most 
distinguished Greek scholars in the Union. His long devotion 
to the study and teaching of this language is not the only rea- 
son of this superiority. His laborious researches in ancient 
literature, his critical collation of copies, various readings, mar- 
ginal notes, general criticisms, as editor of so many of the clas- 
sics already in our colleges, and his excellent classical dictionary, 
have obtained for him this high reputation. 

Being addressed by Dr. Parmly, of New York, on the subject 
of this proposition, last spring, he favoured him with the follow- 
ing answer. I shall quote the correspondence, that the subject 
may come fairly before the reader. 

No. 1, Bond Street, N. Y., March 23, 1843. 
Professor Charles AntJion : 

In conversation with Dr. Spring, last evening, he stated, that 
in the original the word baptism, which we find in the New Tes- 
tament, has no definite or distinct meaning ; — that it means to 
inimerse, sprinkle, pour, and has a variety of other meanings — 
as much the one as the other, and that every scholar knows it ; — 
that it was the only word that could have been selected by our 
Saviour, having such a variety as to suit every one's views and 
purposes. May I ask you, if your knowledge of the language 
from which the word was taken has led you to the same conclu- 
sion ? And may I beg of you to let the deep interest I take in 
the subject plead my apology. 

I have the honour to be, with great respect, most respectfully 

y^'"^' E. Parmly. 



Col. CoLLEaE, March 27, 1843. 
My dear Sir : 

There is no authority whatever for the singular remark made 
by the Rev. Dr. Spring, relative to the force of haptizo. The pri- 
mary meaning of the word is to dip or immerse ; and its second- 
ary meanings, if it ever have any, all refer in some way or other 
to the same leading idea. Sprinkling, &c. are entirely out of 
the question. I have delayed answering your letter, in the hope 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 181 

that you would call and favour me with a visit, when we might 
talk the matter over at our leisure. I presume, however, that 
what I have here vnritten will answer your purpose. 

Yours truly, 

Charles Anthon. 

Like all our testimonies, this comes from one who is not of 
us. I believe, Dr. Anthon is a member of the Episcopal Church 
in New York, of which his brother. Dr. Anthon, is pastor. We 
have yet another argument to offer on this subject, and shall 
then leave it with our readers. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Argument 13. — History of Immorsion and Sprinkling. 

Argument thirteenth is a mere sketch of the history of im- 
mersion and sprinkling. On the subject of immersion, we shall 
commence with the primitive Greek fathers. We' have examined 
all their extant writings, and give the following as the sum of all 
that can be gathered from them on immersion. 

Barnabas : "Consider how he hath joined both the cross and 
the water together ; for this he saith, * Blessed are they who, 
putting their trust in the cross, descend into the water.' ^' "^ ^ 
Again, *^ We go down into the water, full of sin and pollutions ; 
but come up again bringing forth fruit; having in our hearts the 
fear and hope which is in Jesus.'' 

Hermes, writing about a. d. 95, speaking of baptism and 
backsliders, says, " They are such as have heard the word, and 
were willing to be baptized in the name of the Lord; but, when 
they call to mind what holiness it required in those who pro- 
fessed the truth, withdrew themselves." Again, " Before man 
receives the name of the Son of God, he is ordained to death ; 
but, when he receives that seal, he is freed from death, and deli- 
vered unto life : now, that seal is water, into which men descend 
under an obligation to death, but ascend out of it, being ap- 
pointed unto life." 

Justin Martyr. About a. d. 140, Justin Martyr wrote " An 
Apology for Christians ; addressed to the Emperor, the Senate, 
and People of Rome." In this work, he describes the doctrines 
and ordinances of the Church of Christ ; and, on baptism, has 
the following passage : — " I will now declare to you, also, after 

16 



182 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

what manner we, being made new by Christ, have dedicated our- 
selves to God ; lest, if I should leave that out, I might seem to 
deal unfairly in some part of my apology. They who are per- 
suaded and do believe that those things which are taught by us 
are true, and do promise to live according to them, are directed 
first to pray and ask of God, with fasting, the forgiveness of their 
former sins ; and we also pray and fast with them. Then we 
bring them to some place where there is water, and they are 
baptized by the same way of baptism by which we were bap- 
tized : for they are washed [en to udati) in the water in the name 
of God the Father, Lord of all things ; and of our Saviour Jesus 
Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." 

TertuUian, a. d. 204: *' Because the person, [to be baptized,] 
in great simplicity ... is let down in the water, and, with a 
few words said, is dipped." Homo in aqua demissus, et inter 
pauca verba tinctus. Again, when speaking of the vain anxiety 
to be baptized in the Jordan, — " There is no difference, whether 
one is washed in a sea or in a pool, in a river or in a fountain, 
in a lake or in a channel ; nor is there any difference between 
them whom John dipped in the Jordan and those whom Peter 
dipped in the Tiber :" quos Joannes in Jordane, et quos Petrus 
in Tiberi tinxit. He also uses the words, "In aqua mergimur," 
^. e. we are immersed in the water. 

Gregory Nazianzen, a. d. 360 : " We are buried with Christ 
by baptism, that we may also rise again with him ; we descend 
with him, that we may also be lifted up with him ; we ascend 
with him, that we also may be glorified with him." 

Basil, A. D. 360: ^^ En trisi tais katadusesi, &c. By three im- 
mersions, the great mystery of baptism is accomplished." 

Ambrose, a. d. 374: "Thou wast asked, *Dost thou believe in 
God the Father Almighty V Thou saidst, * I do helievCy' and wast 
immersed ; that is, thou wast buried, (mersisti, hoc est, sepultus 
es.) Thou wast again asked, *Dost thou believe on our Lord 
Jesus Christ and his crucifixion?' Thou saidst, 'Ihelievey' and 
wast immersed again, and so wast buried with Christ." 

Cyril, of Jerusalem, a. d. 374: "As he ho endunon en tois udasi, 
who is plunged in the water, and baptized, is encompassed by 
the water on every side ; so they that are baptized by the Spirit 
are also wholly covered all over." 

Chrysostom, a. d. 398 : "To be baptized {Jcai Jcatoduesthai) and 
plunged, and then to emerge or rise again, is a symbol of our 
descent into the grave, and our ascent out of it ; and, therefore, 
Paul calls baptism a burial." 

Witsius: "It is certain, that both John the Baptist and the 
disciples of Christ, ordinarily practised immersion ; whose exam- 
ple was followed by the ancient church, as Vossius has shown 
by producing many testimonies from the Greek and Latin 
writers," 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 188 

Mr. Bower: "Baptism by immersion was, undoubtedly, the 
apostolical practice, and was never dispensed with by the church, 
except in case of sickness/' 

G. J. Vossius : " That the apostles immersed whom they bap- 
tized, there is no doubt, . . . And that the ancient church fol- 
lowed their example is very clearly evinced by innumerable 
testimonies of the fathers/' 

^ Mr. Reeves : " The ancients carefully observed trine-immer- 
sion, insomuch that, by the * Canons Apostolical,' either bishop 
or presbyter who baptized without it was deposed from the mi- 
nistry," 

EncyclopaBdia Ecclesiastica: "Whatever weight, however, may 
be in these reasons as a defence for the present practice of 
sprinkling, it is evident that, during the first ages of the church, 
and for many centuries afterwards, the practice of immersion 
prevailed ; and which seems, indeed, never to be departed from, 
except where it was administered to a person at the point of 
death, or upon the bed of sickness, — which was considered, in- 
deed, not as giving the party the full privileges of baptism, — or 
when there was not a sufficient supply of water. Except in the 
above cases, the custom was to dip or immerse the whole body. 
Hence St. Barnabas says, * We go down into the water,' " &c. 

Mr. Wall, (who explored all the voluminous writers of anti- 
quity in search of evidence of infant baptism,) says, " This [im- 
mersion] is so plain, and clear, by an infinite number of passages, 
that as one cannot but pity the weak endeavours of such Pedo- 
baptists as would maintain the negative of it, so we ought to 
disown and show a dislike of the profane scoffs which some peo- 
ple give to the English Antipedobaptists [Baptists] merely for 
the use of dipping; when it was, in all probability, the way by 
which our blessed Saviour, and for certain, was the most usual 
and ordinary way by which the ancient Christians did receive 
their baptism. 'Tis a great want of prudence, as well as of 
honesty, to refuse to grant to an adversary what is certainly 
true, and may be proved so. It creates a jealousy of all the 
rest that one says." " The custom of the Christians in the near 
succeeding times [to the apostles] being more largely and parti- 
cularly delivered in books, is known to have been generally or 
ordinarily a total immersion." 

Professor Campbell : "I have heard a disputant, in defiance 
of etymology and use, maintain that the word rendered in the 
New Testament baptize, means more properly to sprinkle than 
to plunge ; and, in defiance of all antiquity, that the former was 
the earliest, ^nd — ^the most general practice in baptizing. One 
who argues in this manner never fails, with persons of know- 
ledge, to betray the cause he would defend; and though, with 
respect to the vulgar, bold assertions generally succeed as well 
as argument, and sometimes better ; yet a candid mind will 



184 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

always disdain to take the Tielp of falsehood, even in the support 
of truth/' 

Edinburgh Keviewers : " We have rarely met, for example, 
with a more weak and fanciful piece of reasoning than that by 
which Mr. Ewing would persuade us that there is no allusion to 
the mode by immersion, in the expression * buried with him in 
baptism.' This point ought to be frankly admitted, and, indeed, 
cannot be denied with any show of reason/' 

Bishop Bossuet : " We are able to make it appear, by the acts 
of councils, and by the ancient rituals, that for thirteen hun- 
dred YEARS, baptism was thus [by immersion] administered 
throughout the whole church, as far as possible." 

Stackhouse: "Several authors have shown, and proved, that 
this immersion continued, as much as possible, to be used for 
thirteen hundred years after Christ." 

Stuart: "The mode of baptism by immersion, the Oriental 
church has always continued to preserve, even down to the pre- 
sent time : see Alatii de Eccles. Orient, et Occident, lib. iii. ch. 
12. sec. 4; Acta et Script. Theol. Wirtemb. et Patriarch. Con- 
stant. Jer. p. 63, p. 238 sq. ; Christ. Engeli Enchirid. de Statu 
hodierno Graecor. ch. 24 ; Augusti, Denkwurd. vii. p. 226. sq. 
The members of this church are accustomed to call the members 
of the western churches sprinkled Christians, by way of ridicule 
and contempt : Walch's Einleit. in die relig. Streitigkeiten, Th. 
V. pp. 476-481. They maintain that baptizo can mean nothing 
but immerge : and that baptism by sprinkling is as great a sole- 
cism as immersion by aspersion ; and they claim to themselves 
the honour of having preserved the ancient sacred rite of the 
church free from change and from corruption, which would de- 
stroy its significancy : see Alex, de Stourdza, Considerations sur 
la Doctrine et I'Esprit de TEglise Orthodoxe, Stutt. 1816, pp. 
83-89. 

"F. Brenner, a Eoman Catholic writer, has recently published 
a learned work, which contains a copious history of usages in 
respect to the baptismal rite: viz. Geschichtliche Darstellung der 
Verrichtung der Taufe, etc., 1818. I have not seen the work ; 
but it is spoken of highly, on account of the diligence and learn- 
ing which the author has exhibited in his historical details. The 
result of them, respecting the point before us, I present, as given 
by Augusti, Denkwurd. vii. p. 68. 

"* Thirteen hundred years was baptism generally and ordi- 
narily performed by the immersion of a man under water ; and 
only in extraordinary cases was sprinkling or affusion permitted. 
These latter methods of baptism were called in question and 
even prohibited.' Brenner adds, *For fifteen hundred years was 
the person to be baptized, either by immersion or affusion, en- 
tirely divested of his garments.' 

"These results will serve to show what a Roman CathoUc 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 185 

writer feels himself forced by historical facts to allow, in direct 
contradiction to the present practice of his own church ; which 
nowhere practises immersion, except in the churches of Milan : 
it being everywhere else even forbidden. 

** In the work of John Floyer, on Cold Bathing, page 50, it is 
mentioned that the English Church practised immersion down to 
the beginning of the seventeenth century ; when a change to the 
method of sprinkling gradually took place. As a confirmation 
of this, it may be mentioned that the first Liturgy, in 1547, en- 
joins a trine-immersioTiy in case the child is not sickly: Augusti, 
ut sup. p. 229. 

" We have collected facts enough to authorize us now to come 
to the following general conclusion respecting the practice of 
the Christian Church in general, with regard to the mode of 
baptism, viz. from the earliest ages of which we have any ac- 
count, subsequent to the apostolic age, and downwards for seve- 
ral centuries, the churches did generally practise baptism by 
immersion, perhaps by immersion of the whole person; and that 
the only exceptions to this mode which were usually allowed, 
were in cases of urgent sickness, or other cases of immediate and 
imminent danger, where immersion could not be practised. 

"It may also be mentioned here, that aspersion and affusion, 
which had in particular cases been now and then practised in 
primitive times, were gradually introduced. These became, at 
length, as we shall see hereafter, quite common, in the western 
church almost universal, sometime before the Eeformation. 

** In what manner, then, did the Churches of Christ, from a 
very early period, to say the least, understand the word haptizo 
in the New Testament ? Plainly, they construed it as meaning 
immersion. They, sometimes, even went so far as to forbid any 
other method of administering the ordinance, cases of necessity 
and mercy only excepted. 

"If, then, we are left in doubt, after a philological investigation 
of haptizo^ how much it necessarily implies ; if the circumstances 
which are related as accompanying this rite, so far as the New 
Testament has given them, leave us still in doubt ; if we cannot 
trace, with any certainty, the Jewish proselyte-baptism to a pe- 
riod as early as the baptism of John and Jesus, so as to draw 
any inferences with probability from this ; still, we are left in 
no doubt as to the more generally received usage of the Chris- 
tian Church, down to a period several centuries after the apos- 
tolic age. 

"That the Greek fathers, and the Latin ones who were fa- 
miliar with the Greek, understood the usual import of the word 
haptizo, wovldi hardly seem to be capable of a denial. That 
they might be confirmed in their view of the import of this 
word, by common usage among the Greek classic authors, we 

16* 



186 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

have seen in the first part of this dissertation.'' Stuart's Bib. 
Repos. p. 662. 

To an authority so plenary and venerable with ^ all the Pedo 
baptists of New England and of the Union, little can be added 
from other sources. One short step more, however, would have 
destroyed all this authority, so far as serviceable to us ; for then 
Professor Stuart would have been a Baptist. He has, then, said 
all that a Pedobaptist could say, both in the philological and 
also in the historical department. That he can repose in satis- 
faction upon a probability so perfectly slender, is a problem in 
casuistry to which I shall not now allow myself to advert ; that 
he has not one chance in ten thousand to be safe on this point, 
his own reasonings show. 

Neander's History of the Christian Religicm : ** Baptism was ori- 
ginally administered by immersion ; and many of the compari- 
sons of St. Paul allude to this form of its administration : the 
immersion is a symbol of death, of being buried with Christ ; 
the coming forth from the water is a symbol of a resurrection 
with Christ; and both, taken together, represent the second 
birth, the death of the old man, and a resurrection to a new life. 
An exception was made only in the case of sick persons, which 
was necessary, and they received baptism by sprinkling.'' 

Mosheim/s Ecclesiastical History — 1st century : * * The sacrament 
of baptism was administered in this century, without the public 
assemblies, in places appointed and prepared for the purpose, 
and was performed by immersion of the whole body in the bap- 
tismal font. 

**The sacrament of baptism was administered publicly twice 
every year, at the festivals of Easter and Pentecost or Whitsun- 
tide, either by the bishop or the presbyters in consequence of 
his authorization and appointment. The persons that were to 
be baptized, after they had repeated the creed, confessed and 
renounced their sins, and particularly the devil and his pompous 
allurements, were immersed under water, and received into 
Christ's kingdom by a solemn invocation of Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, according to the express command of our blessed 
Lord. After baptism, they received the sign of the cross, were 
anointed, and, by prayers and imposition of hands, were so- 
lemnly commended to the mercy of God, and dedicated to his 
service ; in consequence of which, they received the milk and 
honey, which concluded the ceremony. The reasons of this 
particular ritual coincide with what we have said in general 
concerning the origin and causes of the multiplied ceremonies 
that crept, from time to time, into the church. [2d century.'] 

*' Adult persons were prepared for baptism by abstinence, 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 187 

prayer, and other pious exercises. It was to answer for them 
that sponsors or godfathers were first instituted, though they 
were afterward admitted also in the baptism of infants. 

" There were, twice a year, stated times when baptism was ad- 
ministered to such as, after a long course of trial and prepara- 
tion, offered themselves as candidates for the profession of Chris- 
tianity. This ceremony was performed only in the presence of 
such as were already initiated into the Christian mysteries. 

"We have only to add, that none were admitted to this solemn 
ordinance, until, by the menacing and formidable shouts and de- 
clamation of the exorcist, they had been delivered from the do- 
minion of the prince of darkness, and consecrated to the service 
of God. The origin of this superstitious ceremony may be easily 
traced, when we consider the prevailing opinion of the times. 
The driving out of this demon was now considered as an essen- 
tial preparation for baptism ; after the administration of which, 
the candidates returned home, adorned with crowns and arrayed 
in white garments, as sacred emblems ; the former, of their vic- 
tory over sin and the world ; the latter, of their inward purity 
and innocence.'' [Sd century.] 

History of the Church, by George Waddington, M, A.: *^ The 
ceremony of immersion (the oldest form of baptism) was per- 
formed in the name of the three persons of the Trinity ; it was 
believed to be attended by the remission of original sin, and the 
entire regeneration of the infant or convert, by the passage from 
the land of bondage into the kingdom of salvation.'' 

Text-Book of Ecclesiastical History, hy J. C I. Geiselerx "The 
custom of considering certain doctrines and rites as mysteries 
[in the 3d and 4th centuries] would naturally have some effect 
on the mode of admission to the church. Baptism was preceded 
by a long preparatory course, during which the catechumens 
(katecJioumenoi) were gradually led, from general religious and 
moral truths, to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, by teachers 
appointed for the purpose, [catechistes,) and must pass through 
various grades (audientes, genuflectentes, competentes,) before they 
were deemed fit to be actually admitted. This course usually 
occupied several years, and often the catechumens voluntarily 
deferred their baptism as long as possible, on account of the re- 
mission of sins by which it was accompanied. Hence, it was 
often necessary to baptize the sick, and in that case sprinkling 
(baptismus clinicorum, tou klinikou,) was substituted for the 
usual rite. The baptism of infants iDCcame now more common. 
The use of exorcism is distinctly mentioned, and all who had 
been baptized, even the children, partook of the Eucharist." 

Cave's Primitive Christianity: "The action having proceeded 
thus far, the party to be baptized was wholly immerged or put 
under water ; which was the almost constant and universal cus- 
tom of those times, whereby they did more notably and signifi- 



188 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

cantly express the three great ends and effects of baptism. For, 
as in immersion there are in a manner three several acts, the 
putting the person into water, his abiding there for a little time, 
and his rising up again ; so by these were represented Christ's 
death, burial, and resurrection ; and, in conformity thereunto, 
our dying unto sin, the destruction of its power, and our resur- 
rection to a new course of life. By the person's being put into 
water was lively represented the putting off the body of the sins 
of the flesh, and being washed from the filth and pollution of 
them ; by his abode under it, which was a kind of burial unto 
water, his entering into a state of death or mortification, like as 
Christ remained for some time under the state or power of death. 
Therefore, as many as are baptized into Christ, are said to be 
* baptized into his death, and to be buried with him by baptism 
into death, that, the old man being crucified with him, the body 
of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth he might not serve 
sin, for that he that is dead is freed from sin,' as the apostle 
clearly explains the meaning of this rite. Then, by his emer- 
sion, or rising up out of the water, was signified his entering 
upon a new course of life, differing from that which he lived 
before, that, ^ like as Christ was raised up from the dead to the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of 
life.' '^ 

Grotius : ^^ Buried with Mm by baptism. Not only the word, 
baptism^ but the very form of it, intimates this [immersion] . For 
an immersion of the whole body in water, so that it is no longer 
beheld, bears an image of that burial which is given to the dead. 
There was in baptism, as administered in former times, an image 
both of a burial and of a resurrection." 

Bishop Taylor: ^^The custom of tJie ancient churches was not 
sprinlding, but immersion ; in pursuance of the sense of the word 
(baptize) in the commandment and example of our blessed Sa- 
viour. Now this was of so sacred account in their esteem, that 
they did not think it lawful to receive him into the clergy who 
had been only sprinkled in his baptism, as we learn from the 
Epistle of Cornelius to Fabius of Antioch.'^ 

Archbishop Usher : " Some there are, that stand . strictly for 
the particular action of diving or dipping the baptized under the 
water, as the only action which the institution of the sacrament 
will bear ; and our church allows no other, except in case of the 
child's weakness ; and therein is expressed our Saviour's bap- 
tism, both the descending into the water, and the rising up." 

Church of England : "As we be buried with Christ by our bap- 
tism into death, so let us daily die to sin, mortifying and killing 
the evil motions thereof. And as Christ was raised up from 
death by the glory of the Father, so let us rise to a new life, and 
walk continually therein." In the directions for the " Public 
Baptism of Infants," the Book of Common Prayer says : "Then 



\ 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 189 

tiie priest shall take the child into his hands, and shall say to 
the godfathers and godmothers, * Name this child/ And then, 
naming it after them, (if they shall certify him that the child 
will endure it,) he shall dip it in the water, discreetly and 
warily, saying,'^ &c. 

Encyclopoedia Britannica : " The Muscovite priests plunge the 
child three times over head and ears in water/^ — Art, Russia, 

Richard Baxter : "It is commonly confessed by us to the Ana- 
baptists, as our commentators declare, that in the apostles' time, 
the baptized were dipped over head in the water, and that this 
signified their profession, both of believing the burial and resur- 
rection of Christ ; and of their own present renouncing the world 
and flesh, or dying to sin and living to Christ, or rising again to 
newness of life, or being buried and risen again with Christ, as 
the apostle expoundeth, (Col. iii. and Rom. vi.;) and though we 
have thought it lawful to disuse the manner of dipping, and to 
use less water, yet we presume not to change the use and signi- 
fication of \\iP 

To these testimonies from ecclesiastical histories, and others 
alluding to ancient records, many more might be added ; such 
as testimonies from Du Pin, Milner, and the Roman Fathers, 
without at all increasing the evidence. For, on reading Mo- 
sheim's notices of the three first centuries, we may see the ancient 
institution and the continual change going on in the concomi- 
tant rites and usages, as clearly, though not as fully, as from a 
thousand volumes. In the first century we have a simple im- 
mersion—a few additions in the second — many more in the 
third — and so on. 

We shall, therefore, glance for a moment at the origin and 
history of sprinkling, and thus add to the chapter of evidence 
now before us. And with whom should we more naturally com- 
mence than with the father of ecclesiastical historians — Euse- 
bius himself ? — 

"Novatus, being relieved thereof by the exorcists, fell into a 
grievous distemper ; and it being supposed that he would die 
immediately, he received baptism, being besprinkled^ with water, 
on the bed wheron he lay, (if that can be termed baptism,) 
neither when he had escaped that sickness, did he afterwards 

* "This word perichutheis, Rufinus very well renders perfusus, lesprinJcled ; for 
people who were sick, and were baptized in their beds, could not be dipped in water 
by the priest, but were sprinkled with water by him. This baptism was thought 
imperfect, and not solemn, for several reasons. Also, they who were thus bap- 
tized were called ever afterwards, clinici ; and, by the 12th canon of the Council 
of Neocaesarea, these clinvU were prohibited the priesthood."— -Bi^se&tws. 



190 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

receive the other things which the canon of the church enjoin- 
eth should be received : nor was he sealed by the Bishop's im- 
position of hands : which, if he never received, how did he re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost ?'' 

The canon to which he alludes is the following: — 
" That they who were baptized in their beds, if they recover 
again, should afterwards go to the Bishop that he might supply 
what was wanting in that baptism.^^ 

This clinic baptism slowly advanced; but never got into much 
favor for ihirteen centuries. As to the introduction and pro- 
gress of sprinkling, the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia gives the follow- 
ing account : 

"The first law for sprinkling was obtained in the following 
manner : Pope Stephen II. being driven from Kome by Adol- 
phus, king of the Lombards, in 753, fled to Pepin, who, a short 
time before, had usurped the crown of France. Whilst he re- 
mained there, the monks of Cressy, in Britany, consulted him 
whether, in case of necessity, baptism poured on the head of the 
infant would be lawful. Stephen replied that it would. But 
though the truth of this fact be allowed — which, however, some 
Catholics deny — ^yet pouring, or sprinkling, was admitted only 
in cases of necessity. It was not till the year 1311 that the 
legislature, in a council held at Ravenna, declared immersion or 
sprinkling to be indifferent. In Scotland, however, sprinkling 
was never practised in ordinary cases, till after the Reformation, 
(about the middle of the sixteenth century.) From Scotland, 
it made its way into England, in the reign of Eliz abeth, but was 
not authorized in the Established Church." AH, Baptism, 

Wall, the most learned and able of Pedobaptist writers, gathers 
up into one paragraph a volume of evidence in attestation of the 
fact just now asserted. I shall give his words in lieu of a hun- 
dred extracts which can be readily gleaned from ecclesiastic 
writers : — 

"France seems to have been the first country in the world 
where baptism by affusion was used ordinarily to persons in 
health, and in the public way of administering it. They [the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster] reformed the font into a 
basin. This learned Assembly could not remember that fonts to 
baptize in had been always used by the primitive Christians long 
before the beginning of Popery, and ever since churches were 
built; but that sprinkling, for the common use of baptizing, was 
really introduced (in France first, and then i^ other Popish 
countries) in times of Popery. And that accordingly all those 
countries in which the usurped power of the Pope is, or has for- 
merly been owned, have left qff dipping of children in the font : 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 191 

but that all other countries in the world, which had never re- 
garded his authority, do still use it : and that basinSf except in 
case of necessity, were never used by Papists, or any other Chris- 
tians whatsoever, till by themselves, "What has been said of this 
custom of pouring or sprinkling water in the ordinary use of 
baptism, is to be understood only in reference to these Western 
parts of Europe ; for it is used ordinarily no where else. The 
Greek Church, in all the branches of it, does still use immersion ; 
and they hardly count a child, except in case of sickness, well 
baptized without it. And so do all other Christians in the 
world, except the Latins. That which I hinted before, is a rule 
that does not fail in any particular that I know of, viz. All the 
nations of Christians that do now, or formerly did submit to the 
authority of the Bishop of Rome, do ordinarily baptize their in- 
fants by pouring or sprinkling. And though the English re- 
ceived not this custom till after the decay of Popery, yet they 
have since received it from such neighbouring nations as had be- 
gun in the time of the Pope's power. But all other Christiana 
in the world, who never owned the Pope's usurped power, do, 
and ever did, dip their infants in the ordinary use.'^ History of 
Infant Baptism, Part ii. chap, ix. 

Bishop Burnet's reason for the change is thus expressed : — 
" The danger of dipping in cold climates may be a very good 

reason for changing the form of baptism to sprinkling.'^ vol. iv., 

page 162. 

HISTORY OF SPRINKLING. 

Novatian, as before shown in the histories quoted, had water 
poured all over him in a bed. This happened not earlier than a. d. 
251, probably 253. (Eusebius, p. 114.) About eighty years after 
this time, when other sick and feeble persons were preferring 
this method introduced by Novatian, so far as all authentic re- 
cords inform us, a decree was issued, called " the 12th canon of 
the Council of Neocaesarea," against such pourings, inhibiting 
persons so poured upon from any participation in the honours of 
the ministry or priesthood. Dr. Wall, who cannot be suspected 
of any partiality to Baptists, or any of us, gives such a history 
of the introduction of sprinkling and pouring as must satisfy 
every candid and disinterested man that it came into use by slow 
degrees, and only in some of the more western parts of the 
western Latin church, and that for full thirteen centuries the ' 
whole world practised immersion, with the exception of invalids 
and pretenders of inability to endure cold bathing. Bonaven- 
ture, in a. d. 1160, alludes to sprinkling in France as becoming 



192 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

an ordinary practice. So do the Synod of Angiers, 1275, epeak 
of dipping and pouring as indifferent. The Synod of Aix, 1585, 
allowed pouring, or dipping or pouring, according to the usage of 
the church, but commanded the water to be poured outjof ladles. 
It made very little progress in Italy, Germany, or Spain, till 
the 14th and 15th centuries. Erasmus, who spent some time in 
England, during the reign of Henry VIII., observes, "With us 
[the Dutch] have the water poured on them. In England they 
are dipped.'' In his colloquy, called IcMhusphagiay supposed to 
have been written in England, he represents infants as " dipped 
all over in cold water, soon after birth, and that, too, in a stone 
font." Wickliffe thought it immaterial whether they be dipped 
once, or thrice, or water poured upon their heads, according to 
the custom of the church to which they belong. The ManuaU 
ad Usum Savum, printed 1530, the 21st of Henry VIII., orders, 
"Let the Priest baptize [the candidate] him by dipping him in 
the water thrice." So decrees the Common Prayer Book of Ed- 
ward VI., 1549 : " the Priest shall dip it in the water thrice." 
Edward VI. was himself dipped : so was Queen Elizabeth. Dip- 
ping continued during Queen Mary's reign. Watson, a Papist 
Bishop, in 1558, the last of the Queen's reign, published a volume 
on the sacraments, in which he says, " Though the old ancient 
tradition of the church hath been from the beginning to dip 
the child three times, it is sufficient." 

Wall : " It being allowed to weak children (though strong 
enough to be brought to church) to be baptized by affusion, 
many fond ladies and gentlewomen first, and then by degrees 
the common people, would obtain the favour of the Priest to 
have their children pass for weak children, too tender to endure 
dipping in the water. 'Especially,' as Mr. Walker observes, 
* if some instances really were, or were but fancied and framed, 
of some child's taking cold or being otherwise prejudiced by its 
being dipped.' " 

" And another thing, that had a greater influence than this, 
was, that many of our English divines and other people had, 
during Queen Mary's bloody reign, fled into Germany, Switzer- 
land, &c. ; and, coming back, in Queen Elizabeth's time, they 
brought with them a great love to the customs of those Protest- 
•ant churches wherein they had sojourned : and especially the 
authority of Calvin, and the rules which he had established at 
Geneva, had a mighty influence on a great number of our peo- 
ple about that time. Now, Calvin had not only given his dic- 
tate in his Institutions, that * the difference is of no moment, 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 193 

whether he that is baptize<J be dipped all over ; and if so, whe- 
ther thrice or once ; or whether he be only wetted with the water 
poured on him :' but he had also drawn up for the use of his 
church at Geneva, (and afterwards published to the world,) a 
form of administering the sacraments, where, when he comes to 
order the act of baptizing, he words it thus : * Then the minister 
of baptism pours water on the infant, saying, I baptize thee,' 
&c. There had been, as I said, some synods in some dioceses 
of France that had spoken of affusion without mentioning im- 
mersion at all ; that being the common practice : but for an 
office or liturgy of any church, this is, I believe, the first in the 
world that prescribes affusion absolutely. Then Musculus had 
determined, — * As for dipping of the infant, we judge that not 
so necessary ; but that it is free for the church to baptize either 
by dipping or sprinkling/ So that (as Mr. Walker observes) no 
wonder if that custom prevailed at home, which our reformed 
divines in the time of the Marian persecution had found to be 
the judgment of other divines, and seen to be the practice of 
other churches abroad ; and especially of Mr. Calvin and his 
church at Geneva.^' 

"And when there was added to all this the resolution of such 
a man as Dr. Whitaker, Regius Professor at Cambridge, * Though 
in case of grown persons that are in health, I think dipping to 
be better ; yet, in the case of infants and of sickly people, I 
think sprinkling sufficient.' The inclination of the people, 
backed with these authorities, carried the practice against the 
rubric, which still required dipping, except in case of weakness. 
So that in the latter times of Queen Elizabeth, and during the 
reigns of King James and King Charles I., very few children 
were dipped in the font.'' 

Concerning the use of basins, Dr. Wall remarks : — 

" The use was, the minister continuing in his reading-desk, 
the child was brought and held below him ; and there was placed 
for that use a little basin of water, about the bigness of a syl- 
labub-pot, into which the minister dipping his fingers, and then 
holding his hand over the face of the child, some drops would 
fall from his fingers on the child's face. For the Directory says, 
it is *not only lawful but most expedient' to use pouring or 
sprinkling." 

How the Church of England has changed its practice, the 
same learned doctor observes : — 

"Upon the review of the Common Prayer Book, at the restau- 
ration, the Church of England did not think fit (however preva- 
lent the custom of sprinkling was) to forego their maxim — that 
it is most fitting to dip children that are well able to bear it. 
But they leave it wholly to the judgment of the godfathers and 

17 



194 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

those who bring the child, whether^ the child may well endure 
dipping, or not ; as they are, indeed, the most proper judges of 
that. So the priest is now ordered, * If the godfathers do cer- 
tify him that the child may well endure it, to dip it in the water 
discreetly and warily. But, if they certify that the child is weak, 
it shall suffice to pour water upon it.' The difference is only 
this : by the rubric, as it stood before, the priest was to dip, 
unless there were an allegation of weakness. Now, he is not to 
dip, unless there be an averment or certifying of strength suffi- 
cient to endure it.'' 

Amongst the most distinguished men of |he Church of Eng- 
land that, in Dr. WalFs time, or before it, argued for immersion, 
are Sotus, Mede, Bishop Taylor, Dan. Rogers, Sir Norton Knatch- 
bull. Walker, Towerson, Whitby, Dr. Cave, &c. &c. He gives 
the words of some of them : — 

Sotus : " Baptism ought to be given by dipping ; so as that it 
is not lawful to give it otherwise, unless for some necessary, or 
. creditable, and reasonable cause.'' 

Vasquez says of sprinkling, "That it is not at all in use, and 
so cannot be practised without sin, unless for some particular 
cause." 

Mede : *^ There was no such thing as sprinkling, or rantismos, 
used in ba|)tism in the Apostles' times, nor many ages after 
them." 

Sir N. KnatchbuU : " With leave be it spoken, I am still of 
opinion that it would be more for the honour of the church, and 
for the [peace and] security of religion, if the old custom could 
conveniently be restored." 

Dr. Whitby : "It were to be wished that this custom [of im- 
mersion] might be again of general use." 

Dr. Cave : " The almost constant and universal custom of the 
primitive times." 

Dr. Towerson, after reciting the arguments in favour of im- 
mersion, in his explication, makes, for a Churchman, the follow- 
ing remarkable concession : — 

" How to take off the force of these arguments altogether, is 
a thing I mean not to consider ; partly because our church 
seems to persuade such an immersion, and partly because I can- 
not but think the forementioned arguments to be so far of force 
as to evince the necessity thereof, where there is not some 
greater necessity to occasion an alteration of it." 

With the above specimen, selected from Dr. Wall, I shall con- 
elude this species of evidence. With regard, however, to the 
introduction of sprinkling and affusion into Scotland, England, 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 195 

and consequently into America, we must give a few extracts from 
his 4th volume. 

Dr. Wall argues the cause of dipping, and the necessity of the 
return to it, on various occasions. I shall give but one extract, 
because it contains much of the history of sprinkling in a few 
words: — 

" That our climate is no colder than it was for those thirteen 
or fourteen hundred years from the beginning of Christianity 
here, to Queen Elizabeth^s time ; and not near so cold as Mus- 
covy, and some other countries where they do still dip their 
children in baptism, and find no inconvenience in it. 

** That the apparent reason that altered the custom was, not 
the coldness of the climate, but the imitation of Calvin and the 
church of Geneva, and some others thereabouts. 

"That our reformers and compilers of the liturgy (even of the 
last edition of it) were of another mind. As appears both by 
the express order of the rubric itself, and by the prayer used just 
before baptism, ' Sanctify this water,^ &c., ^ and grant that this 
child to be baptized therein,' &c.; (if they had meant that pour- 
ing should have always, or most ordinarily have been used, they 
would have said therewith;) and by the definition given in the 
Catechism of the outward visible sign in baptism : ' Water, 
wherein the person is baptized.' I know that in one edition it 
was said, * is dipped or sprinkled with it.' I know not the his- 
tory of that edition ; but as it is a late one, so it was not thought 
fit to be continued. The old edition had the prayer beforesaid 
in these words, * baptized in this water.' 

" That if it be the coldness of the air that is feared ; a child 
brought in loose blankets, that may be presently put off and on, 
need be no longer naked, or very little longer than at its ordinary 
dressing and undressing; not a quarter or sixth part of a 
minute. 

" If the coldness of the water, there is no reason, from the na- 
ture of the thing ; no order or command of God or man, that it 
should be used cold ; but as the waters, in which our Saviour 
and the primitive Christians, in those hot countries which the 
Scripture mentions, were baptized, were naturally warm by 
reason of the climate : so if ours be made warm, they will be the 
liker to them. As the inward and main part of baptism is 
God's washing and sanctifying the soul, so the outward symbol 
is the washing of the body, which is as naturally done by warm 
water as cold. It may, I suppose, be used in such a degree of 
warmth as the parents desire. 

"As to those of the clergy who are satisfied themselves, and 
do in their own minds and opinions approve of the directions of 
the liturgy, and would willingly bring their people to the use of 
it ; it is too apparent what difficulties lie in the way. So that 



196 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

this quarreller has no ground in his assuming way to demand, 
* Why they do continue/ &c. 

*' The difficulty of breaking any custom which has got posses- 
sion among the body of the people, (though that custom be but 
of two or three generations,) is known and obvious. And there 
being a necessity of leaving it to the parent's judgment whether 
their child may well endure dipping or not, they are very apt to 
think or say not : and there is no help for it. For none, I think, 
will pretend that the minister should determine that, and dip 
the child whether they will or not. He can but give his opinion : 
the judgment must be theirs ; and they are for doing as has 
been of late usual. 

*'But there are, besides this general, two particular obstacles, 
which it may be fit to mention. 

"1. One is, from that part of the people in any parish, who are 
preshyterianly inclined. As the Puritan party brought in this al- 
teration ; so they are very tenacious of it; and as in other church 
matters, so in this particularly, they seem to have a settled an- 
tipathy against the retrieving of the ancient customs. Calvin 
was, I think, (as I said in my book,) the first in the world that 
drew up a form of liturgy that prescribed pouring water on the 
infant, absolutely, without saying any thing of dipping. It was 
(as Mr. Walker has shown) his admirers in England, who in 
Queen Elizabeth's time brought pouring in ordinary use, which 
before was used only to weak children. But the succeeding 
Presbyterians in England, about the year 1644, (when their reign 
began, ) went farther yet from the ancient way, and instead of 
pouring, brought into use in many places sprinJcling : declaring 
at the same time against all use of fonts, baptisteries, godfathers, 
or any thing that looked like the ancient way of baptizing. And 
as they brought the use of the other sacrament to a great and 
shameful infrequency, (which it is found difficult to this day to 
reform,) so they brought this of baptism into a great disregard. 
Now I say, a minister in a parish, where there are any consi- 
derable number inclined, this way, will find in them a great aver- 
sion to this order of the rubric. They are hardly prevailed on 
to leave off that scandalous custom of having their children, 
though never so well, baptized out of a basin or porringer in a 
bed-chamber, hardly persuaded to bring them to church ; much 
farther from having them dipped, though never so able to en- 
dure it. 

**2. Another struggle will be with the midwives and nurses, 
&c. These will use all the interest they have with the mothers, 
(which is very great,) to dissuade them from agreeing to the 
dipping of the child. I know no particular reason, unless it be 
this. A thing which they value themselves and their skill much 
upon is, the neat dressing of the child on the christening day ; 
the setting all the trimming, the pins, and the laces in their 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 197 

right order. And if the child be brought in loose clothes, which 
may presently be taken off for the baptism, and put on again, 
this pride is lost. And this makes a reason. So little is the 
solemnity of the sacrament regarded by many, who mind no- 
thing but the dress, and the eating and drinking. But the mi- 
nister must endeavour to prevail with some of his people who 
have the most regard for religion, and possibly their example 
may bring in the rest.'' 

The history of sprinkling water on men, women, or babes, is 
without any authority from Old Testament or New. Neither 
the Jews' religion nor Christianity ever required or approved it. 
It has no more authority from the Bible than transubstantiation, 
auricular confession, purgatory, celibacy, or the worship of an- 
gels and demi-god mediators. 

In the history of Christianity, the whole world. Eastern and 
Western Christendom, with the exception of a few sick and 
dying persons, practised immersion during the long space of 
thirteen hundred years. Since that time, license was granted 
first by the Pope, in 1311, to practise affusion with the autho- 
rity of the church. Calvin next gave a law to his branch of 
the church, authorizing affusion. This was carried first into 
Scotland, and then into England, after the reign of Mary of 
bloody memory ; and finally imposed upon the people, much 
against their own conviction and inclination at first. Time, 
however, reconciled them to it ; and it was not often necessary 
to fine and punish them for neglect of duty, as it once was in 
our good Episcopalian Commonwealth of Virginia, as the fol- 
lowing penal statute, lamentably for the honour of our fore- 
fathers, too amply witnesseth : — 

V 

Copy of a law, found in Henning^s Statutes at large, vol, 2, 
page 165. Dec. 1662, l^th Charles IL 

" Article III. — Against persons that refuse to have their chil- 
dren baptized. 

** Whereas many schismatical persons, out of their averseness 
to the orthodox established religion, or out of the newfangled 
conceits of their own heretical inventions, refuse to have their 
children baptized — 

"^e it therefore enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That all 
persons that, in contempt of the divine sacrament of baptism, 
shall refuse, when they may carry their child to a lawful minis- 
ter in that county, to have them baptized, shall be amerced in 
two thousand pounds of tobacco — halfe to the informer, and 
halfe to the publique.'^ 

17* 



198 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

A few such statutes would soon make infant sprinkling both 
orthodox and popular. 

The largest half of Christendom, as respects territory, includ- 
ing all Asia, all Africa, much of the north of Europe, still prac- 
tise immersion — indeed, all Christendom, as Wall says, that 
never bowed to the throne of the Pope of Kome. 

With this Virginian statute, I shall conclude this mere sketch 
of the introduction, progress, and prevalence of sprinkling in 
the western section of the Christian profession. Were it not 
for a gross imposition, some way practised upon western and 
Protestant Christendom — that immersion is a thing of yester- 
day, and limited to a few hundred thousand Baptists ; and that 
sprinkling and pouring have been always and almost univer- 
sally in popular faith and practice, — I should not have supposed 
it of much importance to pause in the way of comment upon 
the facts now clearly lying before us. But, in view of this 
most unfounded and fallacious assumption, I deem it incumbent 
on me to fix the attention of the community upon this volu- 
minous and instructive, and incontrovertible fact. 

I have not used, in this branch of the argument, more than 
in the preceding part of it, any ex parte witnesses ; unless, in- 
deed, the universal repudiation of Baptist testimony and the 
constant listening to Pedobaptist should be regarded as prefer- 
ring one-sided evidence. But, I presume the Pedobaptists, if 
not the Baptists, will forgive me this wrong. That I have re- 
pudiated a respectable multitude of faithful and competent 
vouchers from giving testimony, merely because they are on 
my side, is, indeed, not treating our friends so kindly and re- 
'spectfully as our opposers ; still, I opine, it is the shorter and 
the safer, and, therefore, the better way of conducting the con- 
troversy. " 

If, then, the Apostles authorized and allowed sprinkling pri- 
vately, as some few of our opponents assume, in that case it 
would be preferable to the custom of immersion ; because, 1st, 
it is a matter of no self-denial or trouble to have a wet finger 
pressed upon one's brow, or a few drops sprinkled upon the 
cheek ; and, 2d, because it would have been just as pleasing to 
the Lord as immersion, inasmuch as he is always pleased with 
his own appointments, and most cheerfully accepts the obe- 
dience which he requires. It is, indeed, a most unprecedented 
case of divine legislation, that the Lord should command and 



ACTION OP BAPTISM. 199 

authorize two actions, so very diverse in form and significance, 
to be performed by his own direct authority, and then call them 
by one and the same name. Be it so, however, that he was 
pleased to sanction privately one such anomaly ; I ask, on the 
principles that govern human nature, and from the customs and 
history of the world, how it could so soon have degenerated 
from affusion to immersion, and in so short a time become so 
universal, that not one instance of sprinkling is found on record, 
either in the New Testament or in ecclesiastical history, for the 
first two hundred and fifty years ? Men generally degenerate 
from hard and grievous exactions to those which are lighter and 
more agreeable ; but, on the assumption before us, as Bishop 
Smith of Kentucky argues, the whole church immediately aban- 
doned the easy and light service of sprinkling for immersion ! 
When God formerly asked the fat and costly sacrifices of the 
flocks of Jacob for his altar and his priesthood, the ungrateful 
Israelites in a few centuries so far degenerated as to offer only 
the poor and worthless. But in this case, when he asks for a 
dove or a sparrow, they degenerate to a full-grown ox or a 
heifer ! I should be pleased to hear some ingenious essayist 
attempt an explanation of this singular anomaly. Till satisfac- 
torily explained, we must, however, continue to regard it as a 
most unfeasible assumption, destitute of any, the least proba- 
bility. 

We have, then, but one case of pouring on record during two 
hundred and fifty years. The Messiah was gone to heaven more 
than two centuries before the sick and distracted Novatian, of 
Rome, had water poured all over him on a bed ; — if, indeed, a« 
Eusebius says, that could be called baptism. Perhaps there 
may have been, about that time, a few others ; but so few and 
so obscure, (if there were any,) that neither Eusebius nor any 
other historian names them. 

The Council of Neocaesarea, sixty-four years after this time, 
condemned such pourings, which, being the first public notice 
of the affair, proves that it had not yet spread far, and, in the 
Becond place, that it was not then regarded by the bishops with 
much favour. 

The delicacy of infants, the fond and foolish tenderness of 
superstitious mothers, the notion of the deadly influence of origi- 
nal sin, the importance of baptism as an ablution, and the sick 
and dying invalids that could not endure immersion, one would 



200 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

think, would have earlier made larger inroads upon the Apos- 
tolic law and ordinances, and prevailed more extensively than 
it seems they did. 

The facts then are, the whole world immersed, with these few 
exceptions, for thirteen centuries. The east half of Christendom 
Btill continues the practice. The Greek portion of the church 
never to this day has given up the primitive practice. 

This, too, is an argument of more weight that even the nu- 
merical magnitude of this immense section of the church. It is 
not merely the voice of many millions, but the voice of many 
millions of Greeks ; — of men who knew what Apostles and Greek 
fathers had written; who needed no translators, nor scholiasts, 
nor annotators, nor historians, to read them lessons on the pri- 
mitive practice or on the meaning of Christ's commission. 
' Some seventy-five or a hundred millions of such vouchers on a 
mere question of fact, qualified as they were, on the mere prin- 
ciple of human authority, would outweigh the world. 

But, even when the Council of Eavenna granted to France 
and the Papal territory the privilege of afiusion, it is not to be 
concluded that the millions of Germany, France, Spain, Portu- 
gal, Italy, and England immediately accepted of the indulgence, 
They did not. France herself did not. England held on for 
three centuries more to immersion ; — so did some other portions 
of eastern Europe ; and one portion of the Koman church holds 
on to this day to the old apostolic custom. "We have, then, a 
tremendous majority, if that is of any value : — ^the whole church 
for thirteen hundred years ; the half of it for eighteen hundred 
years ; and of the balance, some portions of it for fourteen hun- 
dred, and one large portion for sixteen hundred years. 

Concerning the magnitude of the Greek church, compared 
with the Roman, we learn much from the fact, that during the 
first seven general councils, the aggregate of Greek bishops was 
some twenty-two thousand, while that of the Roman bishops 
was less than thirty ! But there is a very plain and tolerably 
accurate way of ascertaining the comparative number of those 
immersed and sprinkled in all time. We have, first, all Chris- 
tendom for thirteen centuries, and half of it for five. 

Now, allow an average of one hundred millions every third of 
a century to have been baptized, which is certainly within the 
limits of the actual number, (but it will show the ratios just as 
well as the true number,) then we have for eighteen centuries. 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. 201 

in all, five thousand five hundred millions ; of this number, fi)ur 
thousand millions were immersed during the first thirteen cen- 
turies. Then we have the one-half of five centuries, which is 
seven hundred and fifty millions, added to four thousand mil- 
lions, — giving an aggregate of four thousand seven hundred and 
fifty millions immersed, for seven hundred and fifty millions 
sprinkled, during all the ages of Christianity ; that is, in the 
ratio of seven immersed to one sprinkled. In making this esti- 
mate, we have given all that have been immersed in the western 
half of Christendom for the last five hundred years, to compen- 
sate for all the clinics that were sprinkled during the first thir- 
teen centuries. After making the most reasonable deductions 
which can be demanded, we have an immense majority of im- 
mersed professors, compared with the sprinkled. This argu- 
ment is not urged in proof of the truth of our positions, but as 
a refutation of those who would represent immersion as a small 
affair, in the esteem of all ages, compared with sprinkling. 

In displaying the documentary evidence of the universality of 
immersion in the early ages of Christianity, and of the opinions 
of learned men on the question of the baptismal practice of the 
church in all ages, we have dealt rather with a sparing hand. 
We could fill a respectable volume with concessions, confessions, 
and candid acknowledgments from the greatest Pedobaptist 
names of Christendom ; but, really, it seems to us a work of 
supererogation. After such men as Mosheim, Waddington, 
Geiseler, Neander, Brenner, Cave, Taylor, Baxter, Usher, and 
Grotius, of the modern witnesses ; — after such admissions on 
the part of Stuart and Wall, from their extensive readings ; — all 
declaring the ancient practice, for so many centuries, to be the 
almost universal practice of the church, why should we summon 
a hundred others to tell the same story, and to reiterate the same 
facts ? Like Wall, we might fill several volumes with such de- 
tails. But, may we not say, that if any one hear not these evi- 
dences, they would not be persuaded though they were multi- 
plied a thousand-fold I 

I do not quote the Koran to prove that the Mohammedans so 
render and understand baptism, though I could have done it ; 
nor do I refer to the frequent immersions enjoined in the Mo- 
hammedan code ; nor did I tell how many conveniences there 
were for practising immersion either in the brook Kedron, at 
the pool of Bethesda, being, according to Maundrel, several 



202 ACTION OP BAPTISM. 

hundred feet long and broad, and eight feet deep, or at the 
private and public baths all over Judea ; nor have I gone to 
Philippi, nor to the baptisteries of ancient renown, — not even 
that of St. Sophia, erected by Constantine, with its immense 
convocation-room, large enough for an oecumenical council ; nor 
have I told of the famous Lateran baptistery, once bestowed by 
Constantine to Sylvester, bishop of Eome ; nor of the baptistery 
of Ravenna, with its octangular edifice of two hundred and 
thirty English feet square ; nor have I named the baptistery at 
Florence, remarkable for its numerous baths ; nor have I told 
of the thousand baths of Robinson ; nor gone into the proof of 
the proposition that baths were as common in the East as bake- 
ovens in Pennsylvania ; neither have I given long accounts of 
the immersion of many kings, and queens, and princesses, from 
Elizabeth back to Constantine the Great ; nor have I alluded to 
a score of little things usually introduced to substantiate the 
testimony given ;— all of which, after what I have said and cited, 
appears about as superfluous, unnecessary, and, I might add, as 
ridiculous, too, as if, after proving, by twelve of the most vera- 
cious witnesses ever sworn, that A B was actually drowned with- 
in one mile of Jerusalem, I should then summon a few travellers 
that had sometimes visited Jerusalem, to say that there was 
actually water deep enough to drown A B, within one mile of 
the city ! 

Nor have I quoted Milton and all the old poets, to prove from 
their sayings and allusions that they all admitted immersion to 
have been found either in haptizo or in history ; nor even half 
of the great men now living : I have not introduced the great 
German Tholuck, on Rom. vi. 4, saying, "In order to under- 
stand the figurative use of baptism, we must bear in mind the 
WELL-KNOWN FACT, that the candidate, in the primitive church, 
was immersed in water and raised out again ;^' nor have I intro- 
duced Urner, saying, " that, in the apostolic age, baptism was 
by immersion, as its symbolic action shows ;'^ nor Belchneider, 
in his Theology, saying, "Immersion was the original apostolic 
practice ;'' nor Starck, nor Guericke, nor Hahn, nor Von Coeller, 
nor Frilsch, — all affirming the same, in words either tantamount 
or paramount. 

Nor have I been peculiarly attentive to the removal of the 
little objections made by great men, on numerous accounts, to 
the difficulties of immersing three thousand in one day — as if 



ACTION OF BAPTISM. SOS 

immersion required twice as long time as sprinkling, which no 
one of experimental knowledge would believe, for sixty persons 
have often been immersed by one person in one hour ; nor have 
I, from this fact, repudiated the custom of long narrations of 
Christian experience prior to immersion, though the argument 
is irresistible : — three thousand persons in one day enlightened, 
convinced, converted, declare their faith and penitence, relate 
their experience, and are immersed in some six or eight hours ; 
nor have I at all adverted to the great difficulty of finding water 
at all seasons and in all places, as if a man could live long in 
any country where he could not find water enough to cover 
him, — or, as if the Lord would condemn any man for not doing 
what, at a particular day or in a particular place, was physi- 
cally impossible ; as if men would not have as much sense now- 
a-days as in old times, when they went out of one place to another 
to be baptized, on various accounts besides scarcity of water ; 
nor yet have I shown that Philippi was situated upon a river, 
and Corinth between two seas ; and that there was not a church 
constituted in the apostolic age, known to history, that had not 
within its precincts, or in its vicinity, baths, public and private, 
rivers or pools of water, adequate to all the requisites of Chris- 
tian immersion. 

The reason why I have not attempted all this, is, because 
such an effort on my part would be wholly gratuitous. For, if 
John the Harbinger baptized our Lord in the Jordan; if all 
Jerusalem, Judea, and the circumjacent country went out to 
him, confessed their sins, and were baptized by him in the Jor- 
dan ; if John baptized at Enon, near to Salem, because there 
was much water there ; if an Ethiopian officer went down into 
the water, in the desert, and came up out of the water, when 
baptized by Philip ; and if the first Christians were all buried 
with the Lord in baptism ; — follows it not, that neither sprink- 
ling nor pouring is Christian immersion, or Christian baptism ? 

Nay, if in a single case it were clearly shown that any one, 
in the act of Christian baptism, had been immersed, follows it 
not that in every case Christian baptism was Christian immer- 
sion ? unless, indeed, there are two Christian baptisms ! But 
this is inadmissible ; inasmuch as the Holy Spirit, by Paul, has 
said, that " there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.^' As 
rationally, therefore, might any one plead for two Lords and 
two faiths as for two baptisms. 



204 ACTION OF BAPTISM. 

To conclude, then, on all the premises submitted in this book, 
I must say, that it appears to me as congruous with good sense, 
good learning, and good taste to affirm that a person can be im- 
mersed by sprinkling or by pouring — or poured or sprinkled by 
immersion, as that he can be baptized by either the one or the 
other. 



i 



BOOK THIRD. 
CHAPTER I. 

SUBJECTS OF JOHN^S BAPTISM. 

The acfion called baptism, so far as judged convenient and 
necessary, has been ascertained. A miniature view, while it is 
more portable and convenient, may be as true and faithful to the 
original as one large as life. There is sometimes as much argu- 
ment in a page as in a volume — in a sheet as in an octavo. The 
age of folios and quartos has passed away. Men of reflection 
know that many words and long sentences are not always ar- 
guments. In an age of books, like the present, a tract may be 
read while a treatise may be neglected ; and, therefore, may be 
made more useful than a volume. 

We now propose a miniature view of the subject of baptism, 
or the person that ought to be baptized. A million of pages 
could not convince a certain class of men on any subject to 
which they are already committed. They love to have it so : 
they will have it so ; and, therefore, it is so. Our hopes gene- 
rally terminate upon the uncommitted — ^the candid and the inqui- 
sitive for truth. For their sake, and with an almost single eye 
to their illumination and rescue from error, we select arguments 
and authorities, both as respects variety and number. To this 
class we now propound the question. Who of mankind have a 
right to receive the blessing of Christian baptism ? 

Before tendering an answer to the important question. Who 
ought to be baptized, it will be expedient to inquire to what dis- 
pensation or institution of religion this solemn and significant 
ordinance belongs. Our most reformed standards of Protestant- 
ism affirm, with the Westminster Confession, that " baptism is an 
ordinance of the New Testament ;^' and, consequently, belonged 
not to the Patriarchal or Jewish institution of religion. This is 

18 205 



206 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

a very important decision of a very leading question bearing di- 
rectly and forcibly on the great subject of investigation. 

But we may be asked, What importance is attached to the fact 
that it is a New Testament ordinance ? The fact that there is an 
Old and New Testament, an obsolete and an existing divine in- 
stitution, is pregnant with very important results and bearings 
as respects both duty and privilege. A new Testament or a new 
Will makes a prior one of no binding influence or importance. 
Paul thus reasons in his letter to the Hebrews. His words are, 
" In that God saith, I will make a new institution, or testament, 
he hath made the first old ;^' that is, obsolete. Still, the Old Tes- 
tament, being the mould or type of the New, may be of much 
value to us, even although it ceases to be binding. If the shell 
of an antediluvian fish increases our knowledge of physical na- 
ture, why may not the moulds and types of the Jews' religion, 
in which our Christian institution was once enveloped, increase 
our knowledge of that institution ? 

God has generally presented a picture to the eye as well as a 
word to the ear, in revealing his purposes and designs to the human 
race. To look into the Patriarchal and the Jewish institutions 
through the developments of the Christian religion, is, therefore, 
of much importance, both as respects the enlargement of our 
knowledge and the confirmation of our faith. To myself, as to 
many other students of the Bible, it is demonstrably evident that 
God has from the beginning of time been arranging the promi- 
nent characters and incidents in human history and the leading 
events of his own moral government and providence in such a 
way as to create faith in his testimony, and to illustrate and 
render more intelligible the mysteries of Christ and his gospel. 
To glance at a few of these, with a reference to the subject on 
hand, may not be without some interest and advantage to the 
inquirer after the proper subject of baptism. 

Placing, then, before us the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, 
or the Oracles of God committed to the Jews and those com- 
mitted to the Christians, we discover in them the following sin- 
gular coincidences : — Each has its Adam, its constitution, its 
special community, its Mediator, its precepts, its promises, its 
privileges, its rewards, its punishme«ts. Hence the frequency 
with which these are placed in contrast by the authors of the 
volume containing the Christian Scriptures. 

In the apostolic writings we have two Adams contrasted — the 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. ^07 

first and the second, the earthly and the heavenly. We fell in 
the first, we rise in the second. There are two chief covenants — 
the first and the second, the old and the new ; two Mediators — 
Moses of the first, and the Lord Messiah of the second ; two 
communities — the Jewish and the Christian ; two births — that 
of the flesh and that of the Spirit ; two positive precepts — cir- 
cumcision and baptism ; two classes of promises — the one tem- 
poral, the other spiritual : two inheritances — one in Canaan and 
one in heaven. 

But as the first existed for the sake of the second, and as the 
points of shadow and substance, of type and antitype, are nu- 
merous and various, the prominent characteristics, designs, and 
tendencies of these two divine institutions are set in order before 
us and pictured out in several conspicuous and remarkable per- 
sons, events, and circumstances. To these also we shall briefly 
allude as preparatory to a proper development of the question 
before us. 

There are several public persons, such as Adam, Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, with their families, made to stand in a double po- 
sition to mankind — as natural progenitors of the race, and as 
typical or spiritual persons. Adam was the father and repre- 
sentative of the whole human race. From him we have all in- 
herited both life and death. We all live because he lived; we 
die, because, as our representative, he sinned. His two sons, 
Cain and Abel, represent two seeds or races of men. Cain was 
a man and a murderer, and Abel was a saint and a martyr. 
Seth takes Abel's place, and his descendants remain for seventy 
generations, till the Messiah appears. Cain's offspring perished 
in the flood. 

Abraham, of all the sons of Seth, was the most illustrious 
personage down to the times of the Messiah. He was consti- 
tuted " the Father of the Faithful,'' and his faith the model faith 
of the family of God. He had two sons — one by nature and one 
by faith. The mother of the first was a slave — of the last, a free 
woman. The two women represent the two covenants, and their 
two sons the two communities under them.* One of these sons 
was *' born after the flesh," the other " after the spirit," or by 
faith. Two families spring from these — the Ishmaelites and the 
Israelites. But Isaac was the person from whom the promised 

* Gal. iy. 



208 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

Benefactor and Redeemer of the world was to come. " In Isaac 
shall thy seed be called." Isaac became a father : he has two 
sons, and only two — Esau: and Jacob. Jacob is converted into 
Israel, while from Esau the Edomites descend. To Ishmael 
Abraham gave a loaf of bread and a bottle of water ; to Isaac, 
all his estate. To Esau God gave Mount Seir; to Israel, 
Canaan, for an inheritance. 

It is worthy of remark that of these three most remarkable 
persons, — Adam, Abraham, and Isaac, — the first born sons were 
only born after the flesh, and lived after the flesh ; while their 
second born sons were born after the Spirit, and lived according 
to the Spirit. "Howbeit," said Paul, "that was not first which 
was spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that 
which is spiritual.'^ Of the first class were Cain, Ishmael, and 
Esau ; of the second, Abel, Isaac, and Israel. 

Such were the original elements, the mystic alphabet of spiri- 
tual things, as time in its evolutions afterwards developed. The 
typical nation is created out of the flesh of Isaac, according to 
what God had said to Abraham — " In Isaac shall thy seed be 
called." Hence the fortunes of Jacob and his sons are spread 
out before us from that day until the Messiah is born, to the 
comparative obscuration and disparagement of every other na- 
tion and people. 

They became "a nation, great, and mighty, and populous,^' 
and are placed under the special wing of Jehovah as their King. 
Their males are marked in the flesh by a special covenant en- 
tered into in the 99th of Abraham, one year before Isaac was 
born. Hence Isaac was born in circumcision. 

While on their way from Egypt to Canaan, they are consti- 
tuted into a holy nation, a kingdom of priests ; not spiritually 
holy, indeed, but holy as respected the fiesJi. Hence the free 
use of the term holy in its application to that people. Their 
camp, their tabernacle, with all its furniture, — their priesthood, 
with all its appurtenances, as well as their persons, were sepa- 
rated, sanctified, or made holy to the Lord. 

It is at Sinai that Moses appears as a mediator. It is there 
that the natural seed, the inheritance, and a special relation to 
God, are engrossed in one great politico-ecclesiastic institution. 
These three are now imbodied in one covenant and solemnly 
ratified. 

The seed of Abraham had now multiplied into millions, but 



SUBJECTS OF BAI»TISM. 209 

the promised seed was not yet come. While the flesh of the 
Messiah is in the nation, it must continue under a theocracy. 
It must be under the special care and direction of God. Its in- 
stitutions must all be mystic, while the Messiah is hid in the 
family of Abraham. 

The new birth was represented by a " baptism into Moses, in 
the cloud, and in the sea.'' The mystic manna, or " the bread 
OF LIFE," was concealed under the covert of the manna that daily 
fell around their dwellings. The stricken Rock, whence issued 
a living stream, was to them Christ, The cloud which over- 
shadowed them by day and illuminated them by night, which 
guided and protected them through the wilderness, was to them 
what the Holy Spirit is to Christians in all his influences through 
his word and ordinances. Their whole pilgrimage through the 
desert is a picturesque representation of human life under a 
remedial system. Death was shadowed forth in their Jordan, 
and heaven itself in their Canaan. ** The things that happened 
unto them happened unto them for types, and they are written 
for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world'' (the 
consummation of that dispensation) " have come." 

The long-promised and joyfully anticipated hour arrives — ^the 
*' fulness of time" has come — the proper offspring of the woman 
appears. His harbinger anticipates him by a few months. In 
proper time he announces his appearance. He proclaims the 
acceptable year of the Lord, and prepares a people for his reign. 
He commences in the bosom of the Jewish church. He strikes 
at their cardinal errors, in theory and practice. He says, 
*^ Think not to say you have Abraham for your father." He 
repudiates all reliance upon the flesh. " God," said he, " can 
raise, of these inanimate stones, sons to Abraham." " Reform," 
continues he, " for the Reign of Heaven approaches." He as- 
sures his countrymen that the day of excision and destruction 
was nigh to all them that trusted in the flesh. To use his own 
words, " the axe" then lay at the root of every barren tree. The 
fatal blow was about to be inflicted upon them, that would con- 
vert them into fuel. He announces, in very intelligible words, 
that his immediate successor, whose way he was preparing, 
would immerse the people in fire and in the Holy Spirit. They 
should all be immersed into their respective tenets. Those who 
received the Messiah should be immersed into the Holy Spirit ; 
and those who did not would be cast into fire ; for so the con- 

18* 



210 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

text defines the subjects of the two baptisms — ^that of tTie JSpini 
and that of the fire. Hence the ministry of John; both his 
preaching and baptism are indicative of a new organization 
upon another principle than that of the Jewish organization. 
Fleshly connection with Abraham, or with any antecedent cove^ 
nant would not be to any one a passport into the new associ- 
ation. A new faith and a new repentance are now proposed as 
the basis of a new ecclesiastical institution. The Jews, as a na- 
tion, expected a Messiah; but, as a nation, they rejected Jesus 
as that Messiah. Hence, as a national community, they ceased 
to be God^s holy nation and his peculiar people. But they are 
not rejected as Jews, neither are they received to baptism as Jews, 
They are rejected because they reject Jesus of Nazareth as the 
Messiah, and they are received because they have received Jesus 
as the Messiah. It is essential to our induction into the spirit 
and genius of primitive and pure Christianity that we keep this 
cardinal and all-important fact before us — ^viz. that the Jews 
were neither received nor rejected by John as Jews ; nor were 
they received or rejected upon the indefinite belief or disbelief 
of a Messiah, a Saviour to come ; but they were received or re- 
jected upon the distinct and definite belief or disbelief — ^that 
Jesus of Nazareth was that definite and special Messiah^ of whom 
Moses, in the law, and all the Prophets did speak. 

In preparing a people for the Lord, John did not propose to 
build a church within a church — to erect an imperium in impe- 
rio; but simply by faith, repentance, and baptism, to have a 
people ready for the manifestation of the Messiah, to become 
the nucleus of a new institution. 

Faith, then, and not flesh — personal repentance, and not fa- 
mily lineage, are essential prerequisites to admission into John's 
confidence and baptism, as the herald of the true Messiah. 
Thus, he levelled the mountains and exalted the valleys ; thus, 
he made the crooked ways straight and the rough places smooth, 
that all flesh might now meet on one new, solid, sublime, and 
enduring foundation. 

Neither John nor his preaching, neither his repentance nor 
his baptism, was intended to reform or new-modify, to improve 
or perfect the Jewish constitution and community. Since the 
Messiah was born, and had come out of the nation, its solemn 
rites were but an empty shell. The kernel was now extracted. 
Hence spirit and not flesh, faith and not blood, baptism and not 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 211 

circumcision, became the burden of the Harbinger, the Messiah 
himself, and his seventy Evangelists. 

Very early in the evangelical history, we are told that he came 
to his own country — ancient Canaan, the covenanted inheritance 
of Abraham and his seed ; but his own people — his kinsmen in 
Abraham, received him not in the character and mission which 
he had assumed. But he was well and cordially received by a 
few. Hence it is declared, that "to as many as received him, to 
them he gave the privilege or power to become the sons of God — 
even to them that believe in his name; who were born,^^ not as 
the Jewish nation, " of blood, of flesh, and of the will of man ; 
but of God.^^ Here is the clear and distinct avowal of the spi- 
rituality of the new kingdom. God's ancient kingdom was of this 
worldy so long as the flesh of his Son was in it. But now he 
has come out of it, and faith unites us to him as the Founder 
of a new kingdom. This explains his speech to Nicodemus, a 
learned ruler of the Jews' church, on the necessity of being 
spiritually born before he could possibly be admitted into the 
new kingdom of God. 

There is great potency in an appropriate name. Hence the 
Spirit of wisdom and of eloquence selected for the first annun- 
ciation of this new institution the beautiful and attractive name, 
** The Eeign of Heaven.'' This reign of Heaven in the heart, 
in a society, or organized community, is called the Kingdom of 
Heaven, and the Kingdom of God. But, as the Jews were, in 
their fleshly and worldly character, as a nation and people, 
placed under the special government of God, they were, in that 
sense, called ^^the Kingdom of QodP It was, therefore, kindly 
intimated by the first of the Evangelists, and by the Harbinger 
on his first annunciation of a new institution, that, in contrast 
with the kingdom of God amongst the Jews, which was of this 
world, this should be first known as 'Hhe Kingdom of Heaven,^^ 
because of its inducting its citizens into a state of spiritual 
blessedness, as far above all antecedent dispensations as the 
heavens are higher than the earth. 

It is cheerfully and thankfully admitted that amongst myriads 
of men in the flesh, there always was a remnant of persons in 
the Jews' institution of distinguished piety and of great moral 
and spiritual excellence and eminence. But they were not so 
by the spirit and force of that institution, but by the spiritual 
provisions of the first covenant that God made with Abraham ; 



212 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

which, in its prospective character, intimated the Christian in- 
stitution with all its provisions of righteousness and mercy, as 
now fully developed. But now, all true citizens of the Chris- 
tian kingdom, by virtue of its own provisions, and without any 
foreign aid from an antecedent or a subsequent institution, are 
made partakers of all spiritual light, liberty, and privilege 
essential to the full development of a perfect character, and to 
the full enjoyment of all the blessings of wisdom, righteousness, 
holiness, and redemption. 

The institution announced by John is properly called a Kew 
Institution, Hence its foundation is new, as well as its privi- 
leges, rights, immunities. John, in preparing the way for its 
annunciation, therefore, very appropriately calls for personal 
reformation before baptism. He refuses all who cannot, or who 
will not, confess their sins and profess repentance prior to bap- 
tism. All his converts were baptized by him confessing or ac- 
knowledging their sins. Hence, they were persons who had 
sinned, and who did believe, and could make confession of sin 
and declaration of repentance. No one can say that John 
preached two baptisms, one having no confession of sin, no 
repentance connected with it ; and one that refused both Phari- 
see and Sadducee, soliciting baptism because of their relations 
to Abraham, without faith in the Messiah and reformation of 
life. 

Indeed, John positively declares that he preached *Hhe bap- 
tism of repentance for the remission of sins.'' It is called ^'tJie 
baptism of repentance^' Now, it is impossible that infants or 
impenitent persons could have been the subjects of John's bap- 
tism. Two things were essential to entitle a person to John's 
baptism : the first is, that he had been a sinner, and was now a 
penitent sinner. Will either of these apply to tender infants ? 
Who presumes to say that infants are sinners, or that they are 
penitent sinners, and that they can speak out and confess that 
they once were impenitent, but are now penitent sinners ? In 
the absence of actual transgression, in the absence of repent- 
ance for actual transgression, and in the absence of a power to 
speak out and confess their sins, no one was a proper subject of 
John's baptism. May we not, then, fearlessly affirm that, for 
these irrefragable reasons, John baptized no infants — none, in- 
deed, but penitent and reforming persons of mature age and 
reason. One important fact, of much value in this investiga- 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 213 

tioD, is now established, viz. that the introductory baptism, 
ordained by God, called for knowledge, conviction of sin, re- 
pentance, and confession on the part of the subjects of it. That 
this conclusion may appear well-founded, we shall submit all 
the passages that speak of the subjects of John's baptism, and 
the peculiarities of his mission. They are the following : — 

Mark i. 1 : " The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God.'^ 

John i. 6, 7 : " There was a man sent from God, whose name 
foas John : the same came to bear witness of the Light, that all 
men through him might believe.^' Matt. iii. 3 : " For this is 
he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias, saying, The voice 
of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make his paths straight.^' 

Luke i. 16, 17 : ** And many of the children of Israel shall he 
turn to the Lord their God : and he shall go before him in the 
spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to 
the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just ; to 
make ready a people prepared for the Lord.'' iii. 1, 2 : " Now, 
the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the 
wilderness." 

Mark iii. 1 : '* In those days came John the Baptist, preaching 
in the wilderness of Judea." Luke iii. 2: *' And he came into 
all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repent- 
ance for the remission of sins." Matt. iii. 2: "And saying, 
Eepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 

Acts xiii. 24: "John preached the baptism of repentance to 
all the people of Israel." xix. 4: "Saying unto the people, 
that they should believe on him which should come after him — 
that is, on Christ Jesus." 

John i. 19 to 31 : "And this is the record of John, when the 
Jews sent Priests and Levites to ask him, Who art thou ? He 
confessed, I am not the Christ. I am the voice of one crying in 
the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. And they 
asked him. Why baptizest thou, if thou be not that Christ ? 
John answered, I baptize in water ; but there standeth one 
among you, who, coming after me, is preferred before me. That 
HE should be manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing 
in water. 33. [For God] sent me to baptize in water." 

Matt. iii. 5 : " Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, 
and all the region round about Jordan ; 6. And were baptized 
of him in the Jordan, confessing their sins." 

Mark i. 4 : " John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach 
the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; 5. And 
there went out unto him all the land of Judea and they of Jeru- 



214 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

salem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, con- 
fessing their sins/' 

Luke iii. 12 : " Then came also publicans to be baptized, and 
said unto him, Master, what shall we do ? 12. And he said unto 
them. Exact no more than that which is appointed you/' 

Matt. iii. 7 : " But when he saw many of the Pharisees and 
Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, generation 
of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 
8. Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance ; 9. And 
think not to say within yourselves. We have Abraham for (mr 
father : for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to 
raise up children unto Abraham. 11. I, indeed, baptize you 
with water unto repentance ; but he that cometh after me ia 
mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear ; he shall 
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire ; 12. Whose fan 
is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather 
his wheat into the garner ; but he will burn up the chaff with 
unquenchable fire.'' 

Matt. iii. 13 : " Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan 
unto John to be baptized of him. 14. But John forbade him, 
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to 
me ? 15. And Jesus answering, said unto him. Suffer itio he so 
now ; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then 
he suffered him." Mark i. 9: [Thus] " Jesus came from Nazareth 
of Galilee, and he was baptized of John in the Jordan." 

Matt. iii. 16 : " And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up 
straightway out of the water." Mark i. 10 : "And — coming up out 
of the water," Luke iii. 21, " and praying, the heaven was opened, 
22, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove 
upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art 
my beloved Son ; in thee I am well pleased. 23. And Jesus 
himself began to be about thirty years of age." 

John i. 32 : " And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit 
descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. 29, 
36. And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ! 34. And 
I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God. 28. These 
things were done in Bethabara, where John was baptizing." 

John iii. 22 : " After these things came Jesus and his disciples 
into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them and bap- 
tized. 26. And they came unto John, and said unto him. Be- 
hold, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest 
witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him. 
27. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing except 
it be given him from heaven. 30. He must increase, but I must 
decrease." 

Chap. iv. 1 : " When, therefore, the Lord knew how the Phari- 
sees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 215 

John, 2. (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) 
3. He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee, x. 40. And 

J he] went away again beyond the Jordan, into the place where 
ohn at first baptized ; 42. And many believed on him there.'' 

Luke vii. 24: "And when the messengers of John were de- 
parted, he began to speak unto the people concerning John. 
What went ye out into the wilderness for to see ? 26. A 
Prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a Prophet.'' 
Matt. xi. 10 : " For this is lie of whom it is written. Behold, I send 
my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way be- 
fore thee. 11. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are 
born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the 
Baptist.'' John v. 35 : " He was a burning and a shining light." 

Mark xi. 29, " And Jesus answered and said unto them, I 
will also ask you one question. 30. The baptism of John, was 
it from heaven, or of men? Answer me. 31. And they reasoned 
with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven ; he will 
say. Why then did ye not believe him ? 32. But if we shall 
say. Of men ; (all the people will stone us : Luke xx. 6,) they 
feared the people ; for all men counted John that he was a 
Prophet indeed. 33. And they answered and said unto Jesus, 
We cannot tell," 

Luke vii. 29 : " And all the people that heard Tiimy and the 
publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of 
John. 30. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel 
of God against themselves, being not baptized by him." 

From a careful examination of the whole testimony of the 
four Evangelists concerning John's baptism, there appears as 
much reason to conclude that the Messiah was an infant when 
John immersed him in the Jordan, as that he ever baptized an 
infant or any one incapable of confessing his sins and profess- 
ing reformation. 

His baptism is called baptism of repentance. It is so called by 
Matthew, Mark, and Paul ; of course, then, none but penitents 
could be the subjects of a ** baptism of repentance for remission 
of sins." Infants have not sins to repent of; and, therefore, 
can neither morally, nor physically, nor by proxy confess them. 
Hundreds of candid Pedobaptists avow the conviction that John's 
baptism, at least, was addressed only to persons of mature age 
and reason. With the Episcopal commentators, T. Scott and 
Burkitt, " almost all learned men say John's baptism was the 
baptism of repentance, of which infants were incapable." Bur- 
kitt^s Notes on Matt. xix. 13-15. " It does not appear that 
any but adults were baptized by John. Adults professing re- 



216 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

pentance and a disposition to become the Messiah's subjects, 
were the only persons whom John admitted to baptism/' T. 
Scott's Com., Matt. iii. 56. 

It is as inexpedient as unnecessary to multiply such conces- 
sions and acknowledgments as these. Scarcely any one is so 
presumptuous as to contend that John baptized any one, except 
the Messiah, who did not confess his sins ; and but very few 
have had courage to afi&rm that he ever sprinkled or poured 
water upon any one, infant or adult. 

But there are those that assume that there was a Jewish 
proselyte baptism in use long before the days of the Baptist, 
and that John derived his baptism from it. This, it must be 
confessed, is a very weak bulwark in defence of infant baptism. 
Infant proselytes ! ! What an easy triumph ! ! John could not 
have said to such, " Generation of vipers, who has warned you 
to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruits worthy 
of repentance, and think not to say, We have Abraham for 
our father/' 

A few great names have, indeed, been arrayed before us, 
affirming that such a rite was in use from very ancient times 
amongst the Jews. But as many great, if not greater name^, 
can be arrayed on the negative side. Do they mention a Light- 
foot, a Beza, a Maimonides ? We will offset these with a Werns- 
dorfius, a Deylingius, an Eliezer, and a Knatchbull. Do they ap- 
peal to the Talmud, '^ that labyrinth of errors and foundation of 
Jewish fables V We call for Josephus, who is as silent as the 
grave on this assumption^ Do they appeal to Kabbis? We 
summon Philo and the Apocrapha. Neither of these so much 
as allude to it. Do they tell us of Dr. Owen ? We tell them of 
Dr. Benson. Do they prove that ever the Jews baptized a prose- 
lyte ? Let them name him. Then we will show that he lived 
after the days of John the Baptist, from whom doubtless cer- 
tain Jews borrowed proselyte baptism. 

But we appeal to a stronger and a clearer light. We inquire 
at the Oracle of God. And what saith it ? That John's bap- 
tism was a new institution. The words of those who ought to 
know it import this. The Priests and the Levites ask John, 
*' If thou art neither the Christ, nor Elias, nor the Prophet, why 
baptizest thou?'' For this reason, says John, "I am come bap- 
tizing in water, because" I knew that " he should be made mani- 
fest to Israel." Does not this indicate a new commission and ik 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 217 

^ew institution ? To the same effect, says Paul, in his speech at 
Antioch, in Pisidia — " When John had first preached before 
his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of 
Israel/' 

But there are two passages of Scripture still more expressly 
contradictory of this assumption. The one is taken from the 
Messiah himself. I ask you, says he, " Whence came the bap- 
tism of John — from heaven or from men V They dare not 
say from mew, for the people know better and would have stoned 
^hem. 

The other passage is Heb. ix. 10. In this all the divinely 
appointed rites, washing and bathing, practised by the Jews, 
are said to have been ordained only till the time of reformation, 
or to the Christian era. These clearly indicate that John's bap- 
tism was from God, and not from tradition or from the Jews. 
Indeed, all this is logically and grammatically implied in call- 
ing him the Baptist. A baptist he might have been, but the 
Baptist he could not be but by contrast or by eminence. 

There is, however, one fact in the history of Jews' proselyte 
baptism as ancient as the existence of the usage, whether that 
be before or since the Baptist's time, fatal to the use that the 
advocates of infant baptism make of it. It is this: **It was 

NEVER REPEATED ON THE POSTERITY OF THOSE WHO HAD BEEN" 

THUS BAPTIZED.''^ Dr. John Walker, of Dublin, and the Soci- 
nians, regarding Christian baptism as a proselyting institution, 
refuse baptism to those whose parents have been baptized. In- 
deed, all those who regard baptism as a proselyting usage, after 
the Jewish style, ought never to baptize their descendants, 
whether infants or adults. 

We conclude, then, from all the premises extant, whether in 
the New Testament or out of it, that the baptizing of infants is 
without the slightest countenance, so far down as the personal 
ministry of John the Baptist, or of the Messiah in person, is 
concerned. If, then, it be a divine institution, it must be a 
Christian institution ; and if a Christian institution, it must have 
been instituted by Jesus Christ. Of course, then, the proof 
necessarily lies upon him that affirms that Jesus Christ ordained 
it. We ask for such evidence. Those who have it must, then, 
produce it. It is not incumbent on us to prove that the Mes- 

* See the great Selden, De Jure, et Gen. lib. ii. cap. ii. pp. 139, 142, 
19 



218 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

siah did not institute or ordain infant baptism. It is incumbent 
on them that inculcate and practise it to show the Christian au- 
thority under which they act. A positive institution requires 
positive precept — a positive and express authority. No positive 
institution has ever been established upon mere inference. To 
attempt to found a positive Christian ordinance upon an infer- 
ence, or upon a series of inferences, is, in spirit and in effect, to 
stultify and make void its pretensions. When was there in the 
history of the Bible a positive institution or a divine ordinance 
erected, enforced, and practised, upon a mere inference ? We 
ask for a parallel case. It never has been given. It never can 
be given. We have called upon its advocates times without 
number for such a precept — for such a positive injunction ; but 
hitherto we have asked in vain. 

We can, occasionally, circumstantially/ prove a negative. We 
sometimes prove an alibi. We show that the accused was else- 
where at the time and place in which the imputed deed was com- 
mitted. The argument then is. The accused did not do it, be- 
cause he could not do it; for he was not there. 

The assumption on hand may, indeed, in this way be nega- 
tived, and the negative maintained. We show that there is 
no baptism of divine authority, or of divine record, that did 
not require a moral qualification on the part of the subject 
of it. John, for example, demanded faith, repentance, and con- 
fession on the part of those who demanded his baptism. In- 
deed he went still farther. He repudiated the plea of ances- 
torial worth, of ancestorial faith, in the strongest imaginable 
terms. He supposes a case in which a son of Abraham, " the 
Father of the Faithful,'' presents himself demanding baptism on 
account of fleshly relationship. And what does he say to him ? 
" Think not to say in your heart that you are a son of Abra- 
ham'^ — ^that this renowned Patriarch is your father. Nay, 
verily. " Bring forth fruits worthy'' of the profession of repent- 
ance. Confess your sins and forsake them. Here, then, may 
be found a full demonstration of the ground we have assumed. 
The required qualification of the subject maybe such as to nega- 
tive the approach of any one, of every one who is physically or 
otherwise disqualified. Now what alibi in law is more evident 
than if faith, repentance, and confession be required in any case 
as a prerequisite to the reception of any institution, the want of 
those qualifications wholly disqualifies such a candidate for that 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 219 

institution, and negatives his advances to it. So long, then, as 
it is written, " If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest,^* 
it is also implied that if thou dost not believe with all thy heart 
thou mayest not be baptized. 



CHAPTER II. 



SUBJECTS OP CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. — INDUCTION OF NEW- 
TESTAMENT CASES. 

John's baptism was not Christ's baptism. It was a prepara- 
tory institution, John was not sent by the Lord Jesus Christ, 
but by his Father. *' Behold/' said God the Father, "I send 
my messenger to prepare the way before thee."^ John fulfilled 
his mission. He prepared a people for the Lord. Those whom 
he prepared had been, as we have seen, instructed before they 
were baptized. It is, then, just as evident that John's disciples 
were not infants, as that they were not sprinkled. 

But Christian baptism is our theme. It was instituted by 
Jesus Christ ; and neither by Moses, the lawgiver, nor by John, 
the reformer. When, then, did he institute it? Not at the be- 
ginning, nor at the end of his life. During his public ministry, 
and until he was crucified and buried, John's baptism had nei- 
ther rival nor substitute. " Jesus, indeed, says John, " baptized 
not, but his disciples baptized." The preparatory school con- 
tinued during the whole personal ministry of the harbinger and 
the Messiah. But, when John was beheaded, and Jesus cruci- 
fied, there was a people prepared for the Lord ! ! These were 
they that rallied around the Messiah during the last scenes of 
his life and after his resurrection. These were they to whom 
he showed himself alive after his passion, and to whom he com- 
municated freely, during the period of forty days, the things con- 
cerning the kingdom of God. 

How many hundreds composed the preparatory school of the 
risen Lord, we are not informed. We learn from Paul, that, in 
one of their meetings, more than Jive hundred disciples were 
present. 

* Matt ix. 10. 



220 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

But, as God did not deliver his law to the people at the foot 
of the mount, but to Moses in the mount, so the Messiah did not 
deliver his new institution and law to these hundreds, but to 
the select band of the Apostles, to whom he had already im- 
parted his gracious purposes. To them he gave the commission, 
and the law of baptism, upon a mountain in Galilee. It was 
given immediately before his visible and personal ascension into 
heaven. It was his last act, the consummation of his work as 
a Lawgiver and King. It is most fully reported by Matthew, 
and is in the following words: — ^^ All power is given to me in 
Tieaven and in earth. Go ye, tJierefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded youJ^ 

This is the law of Christian baptism, the institution and ori- 
gin of it ; and, certainly, it is a clear and express precept. 
Though quite intelligible in the common version of it, as now 
quoted ; it is, nevertheless, imperfectly and, indeed, in a compa- 
rative point of view, rather obscurely translated. It should, in 
strict accordance with the original Greek, be translated — "AU 
authority in heaven and in earth is given to me : go you, there- 
fore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirity 
teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded 
you ; and, behold ! I am always with you to the conclusion of 
this state.'' 

According to the common version of this law of baptism, 
Jesus taught the Apostles first to teach all nations, then to bap- 
tize them ; and again to teach them all his observances. The com- 
mon reader would regard this as simply requiring that the 
nations be taught before and after baptism ! But, in the ori- 
ginal language, we have not this difficulty to contend with. "We 
have two words of very different meaning, occurring in the 
same verse, translated by one and the same word, teach. These 
are matheteuoo and didascoo. They are visibly and audibly dif- 
ferent words. They are not composed of the same characters, 
nor of the same sounds. They are just as different in sense. 
They both, indeed, mean to impart instruction ; but it is a dif- 
ferent kind of instruction. The first indicates that instruction 
necessary to make a disciple : the second imparts that species 
of instruction afterwards given to one who has become a disci- 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 221 

pie with regard to his duties. The first represents the person, 
character, and claims of the teacher, and the necessity of becom« 
ing his pupil ; the second represents the duties and obligations 
of the pupil to his teacher. The first intimates the simple 
preaching of the gospel as Mark the evangelist interprets it, 
chap. xiv. 16, His version of the whole commission is — ^'Go 
ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature ; he 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; he that belie veth 
not shall be damned." 

Now, that three things, very difierent from each other in some 
essential attribute, are prescribed by the Lord Messiah in this 
commission, or law of apostolic and ministerial duty in his ser- 
vice, cannot admit of a rational doubt. What these three dis- 
tinct things were, need scarcely be enumerated. Every reader 
must observe that they were first to preach the gospel, or make 
disciples — produce faith. Then they were to baptize them, so 
instructed, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit, In the third place, they were didactically to 
propound to them, or teach them to observe and practise the 
Christian ordinances and duties. 

But, as every one will not admit, with entire freedom from 
prejudice, our interpretation of the law of baptism, I have con- 
cluded to collate the views and interpretations of this passage, 
entertained and taught by distinguished scholars and critics on 
the Pedobaptist side of this question. They will be heard by 
many of my readers with more authority and candour than I 
could claim for myself. Here, then, are a few samples of Pedo- 
baptist interpretations of the law of Christian baptism. They 
are, for the most part, copied from " Booth's Pedobaptism Exa- 
mined," a work of very great labour and of distinguished 
merit : — 

Grotius : " Seeing there are two kinds of teaching, one by way 
of introduction to the first principles, the other by way of more 
perfect instruction: the former seems to be intended by the 
word matheteuin, for that is, as it were, to initiate into discipline, 
and is to go before baptism ; the latter is intended by the word 
didasJcein, which is here placed after baptism." In loc. 

Calvin: ** Because Christ requires teaching before baptizing, 
and will have believers only admitted to baptism, baptism does 
not seem to be rightly administered, except faith precede. Under 
this pretence, the Anabaptists have loudly clamoured against 
Pedobaptism." In Harm. Evang. Comment, ad loc. 

19* 



222 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

Dr. Barrow: **What the action itself enjoined is, what the 
manner and form thereof, is apparent by the words of our Lord's 
institution : Going forth, saith he, teach, or disciple, all nations, 
haptizing them. The action is baptizing or immersing in water ; 
the object thereof, those persons, of any nation, whom his mi- 
nisters can, by their instruction and persuasion, render disci- 
ples } that is, such as do sincerely belieye the truth of his doc- 
trine, and seriously resolve to obey his commandments/' Works, 
vol. i. p. 518, edit. 1722. 

Saurin: '*In the primitive church, instruction preceded bap- 
tism, agreeably to the order of Jesus Christ; *Go, teach all 
nations, baptizing them/ .... Thus, likewise, we understand 
St. Peter, when he says, that the baptism which saves us, is 
* not the putting away the filth of the flesh ; but the answer of 
a good conscience.' The ansiver of a good conscience, is that 
account which the catechumen gives of his faith and knowledge. 
Whence it came to pass, that the ancients usually called a bap- 
tized person, one that was illinninated/' Serm. tom. i. pp. 301, 
302. Le Haye, edit. 3d. 

Yossius: "Kespecting adults, it is required that they be 
taught the Christian religion and profess it, before they be bap- 
tized ; for this the very institution of baptism teaches, (Matt, 
xxviii. 19 ; Mark xvi. 15, 16.) We are taught the same thing 
by the practice of John the Baptist, and of the Apostles, (Matt, 
iii. 1, 2; Luke iii. 3; Acts ii. 38, 41.)'' Disput. de Bap. disput. 
xii. I 3. 

Dr. Doddridge: "I render the word matheeteusate, proselyte, 
that it may be duly distinguished from didaskontes, teaching, (in 
the next verse,) with which our version confounds it. The for- 
mer seems to import instruction in the essentials of religion, 
which it was necessary adult persons should know and submit 
to, before they could regularly be admitted to baptism ; the lat- 
ter may relate to those more particular admonitions in regard 
to Christian faith and practice, which were to be built on that 
foundation." Note on the place. 

Limborch: "They could not make disciples, unless by teach- 
ing. By that instruction, disciples were brought to the faith 
before they were baptized, (Mark xiv. 15, 16.)" Instit. 1. v. 
c. Ixvii. § 7. 

Dr. Whitby : ^^Matheteuin here, is * to preach the gospel to all 
nations,' and to engage them to believe it, in order to their pro- 
fession of that faith by baptism : as seems apparent, (1) From 
the parallel commission, Mark xvi. 15, *Go, preach the gospel 
to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be 
saved.' (2) From the Scripture notion of a disciple, that being 
still the same as a believer. ... If here it should be said that 
I yield too much to the Anti-pedobaptists, by saying, that to be 
made disciples here is to be taught to believe in Christ -, I desire 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 225 

any one to tell me how the Apostles could matheieuin, make a 
disciple of a heathen or an unbelieving Jew, without being ma- 
thetai, or teachers of them ; whether they were not sent to preach 
to those that could hear, and to teach them to whom they 
preached, that * Jesus was the Christ,' and only to baptize them 
when they did believe this/' Annotat. on the place. 

Venema : " *Go,' says our Lord to the Apostles, * teach all na- 
tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you/ This is an excellent pas- 
sage, and explains the whole nature of baptism. Before persons 
were baptized, it was necessary for them to believe the preach- 
ing of the Apostles, which faith they were to profess in baptism. 
For the word matheieuin, in the style of the New Testament, 
does not signify barely to admit into a school and instruction ; 
but to admit after the doctrine is believed, and after a previous 
subjection to the school." Dissertat. Sac. 1. ii. c. xiv. § 6. 

Mr. Baxter: " Go, disciple me all nations, baptizing them. As 
for those that say they are discipled by baptizing, and not before 
baptizing, they speak not the sense of that text ; nor that which 
is true or rational, if they mean it absolutely as so spoken : else 
why should one be baptized more than another ? . . . . This is 
not like some occasional historical mention of baptism ; but it 
is the very commission of Christ to his Apostles for preaching 
and baptizing, and purposely expresseth their several works, in 
their several places and order. Their first task is, by teaching, 
to make disciples, who are, by Mark, called believers. The 
second work is to baptize them, whereto is annexed the promise 
of their salvation. The third work is to teach them all other 
things, which are afterwards to be learned in the school of 
Christ. To contemn this order, is to renounce all rules of 
order ; for, where can we expect to find it, if not here ? I pro- 
fess my conscience is fully satisfied from this text, that it is one 
sort of faith, even saving, that must go before baptism, and the 
profession whereof the minister must expect.'' Disputat. of 
Eight to Sac. pp. 91, 149, 150. 

It would be superfluous to add any thing farther, either in 
development or in proof of the fact that the Lawgiver and King 
of Zion did command his Apostles to first preach the gospel to 
every nation, in order to the conversion of the people ; then to 
baptize those who believed ; and, in the last place, to teach them 
to observe and do all things whatsoever he commanded them. 
In the judgment of those learned and candid Pedobaptists just 
now quoted, with whose judgment we fully concur, the Evan- 
gelist Mark gives the full substance and meaning of Matthew's 
version of the law of baptism, in quoting the sense rather than 



224 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

the words spoken. "Go ye into all the world; preach the gos- 
pel to every creature: he that believeth it, and is baptized, shall 
be saved ; and he that believeth it not shall be damned/' The 
word, indeed, must be spoken before it can be heard ; it must 
be heard and understood before it can be believed ; it must be 
believed before it can be obeyed ; and it must be obeyed before 
it can be enjoyed. It is not in the power of angels or of men to 
change this order of things. Hence, no one can enjoy the bene- 
fits of Christian baptism that receives it in any other way than 
that suggested in his divine law. On the authority of the Apos- 
tle Matthew and the Evangelist Mark, we conclude, that the 
express will and command of the Lord Jesus Christ is, that 
none but an intelligent professing believer of the apostolic gos- 
pel is a fit and lawful subject of Christian baptism. 

Our second argument is drawn from the divinely-recorded prac- 
tice of the Apostles, to whom this commission was given while 
they were employed in executing it. There is one historical 
book in the sacred writings of the Christian Institution that re- 
cords the acts and deeds of the Apostles under this commission. 
Luke the Evangelist is the author of that book of the Acts of 
THE Apostles. To it, then, we shall look f&r a matter of fact 
exposition of the sense in which the Apostles understood the 
commission. 

In the first chapter of this hook of Apostolic acts, we are in- 
formed, that the Messiah himself, in person, immediately before 
his ascension, gave them specific directions where to commence 
and whither to proceed, into all the world, in preaching the 
gospel to the whole human family. He commands them to 
begin at Jerusalem ; thence to proceed through Judea ; thence 
to Samaria, and thence to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
Now, a few examples of this mode of procedure in discharging 
these duties will fully demonstrate hcfw they understood the 
divine precept under which they acted. We shall, then, exa- 
mine a few cases. 

On Pentecost, Peter first preached the Christian gospel as 
developed and consummated by the resurrection, ascension, and 
glorification of the Lord Messiah. Thousands heard him, were 
convicted of guilt, and sued for mercy. They asked him what 
tJiey should do. His response is most apropos to the question 
propounded — ^^ Repent and he haptized, every one of you,'' said 
he. He does not say, "Be baptized and repent ;'' but, " Repen); 



gtrBJECTS OP BAPTTSi;!. S2S 

and be baptized, every one of you." Here, there appears to be 
a strict conformity to the Baptist John in his "baptism of re- 
pentance for the remission of sins.'' 

But still more definite and precise the historian in narrating 
who were that day baptized. ^^Then,^^ says Luke, ^^they that 
gladly received his word were baptized J' None else — not one; 
for so the words imply. He could not have said that they who 
gladly received his word were baptized, if infants and persons 
not professing to have received it had been baptized. He ought 
in that case to have said, that they who gladly received his word, 
with all their families, were baptized. Then we should have 
had no objections to baptizing those who neither gladly receive 
the word nor profess to have received it. 

Passing from Jerusalem to Samaria, at which place we have 
the second report of Christian baptism, we find Philip, acting 
the evangelist, preaching the gospel to the people of Samaria. 
They hear him with candour, and multitudes believe. **When,'^ 
says Luke, "they believed Philip preaching the things concern- 
ing the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they 
were baptized both men and women.''* "Then Simon himself 
believed also, and when he was baptized he continued with 
Philip," &c. This is the whole report of preaching the gospel 
and of baptizing in Samaria. It is, then, indisputably evident, 
from the narrative, that Philip interpreted the commission as we 
have done ; or, what is the same thing, he followed the example 
of Peter in Jerusalem, on Pentecost, who, doubtless, infallibly 
so understood it. None but ^^ believing men and women'* were 
baptized by Philip. Had there been children or babes baptized, 
he would, certainly, have specified them when going into the 
details of "men and women." But they are excluded not only 
by the omission of adding to the men and women the word 
children ; but by giving to them the reputation of believing men 
and women. Had the historian only said, "When they heard 
Philip preaching the gospel, they were baptized, men, women, 
and children," there would have been, at least, some plausibi- 
lity in pleading for the baptism of babes. Even then, however, 
it would have been incumbent on any one pleading for infant 
baptism from such language, to -prove that these children, who 
are classed among them that heard the gospel, were speechless 

* Acts viii. 12. 



226 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

"babes. But, as it is, there is not the slightest ground to plead 
for infant subjects of baptism, from any precept, precedent, hint, 
or allusion, that could warrant such a practice, from any thing 
which as yet occurred in Jerusalem, Judea, or Samaria. We 
shall, then, next proceed with the Evangelist Philip to another 
field of labour. 

We next find him preaching in the desert to a political grandee, 
the treasurer of an Ethiopian queen — a gentleman, no doubt, of 
distinguished moral character. We have the narrative of this 
"baptism in the same chapter with that of the Samaritan people. 
He solicited baptism, after hearing Philip preach the gospel 
from the Prophet Isaiah. Being a Jew, by nation, he was well 
read in the Prophets ; and, so soon as his doubts and dif&culties 
were removed, he desired to submit to the Lord. We hold the 
report of his baptism peculiarly important in this discussion ; 
not because he was a well-educated adult believer of the gospel, 
"but because of the answer given to him from the Evangelist 
Philip, on his demanding baptism — What hinders, or what 
should hinder my being baptized, Philip? Nothing, virtually 
responds the preacher, but the want of faith. " I believe, sir,^^ 
said he, "that Jesus is the Son of God.'^ Then he baptized 
him. This is a very striking proof that a profession of faith is, 
in all cases, essential to the reception of Christian baptism. 
Had not the question been thus formally propounded and re- 
sponded to, there might have been some suspicion concerning 
the proper qualification of the subject of baptism. Now, as 
there is one baptism that makes faith an essential prerequisite, 
it lies upon those who assume a baptism without faith, to prove 
that there are two baptisms — one requiring faith, and one requi- 
ring flesh only in the subject. 

The next case of baptism reported in the history of the labours 
of the Apostles, is that of Saul of Tarsus. We need not prove 
that he was a believing subject. This case is circumstantially 
narrated in the ninth chapter of this book. "Arise, brother 
Paul, and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon the 
name of the Lord.^^^ "And he arose and was baptized.^' This 
is a baptism that indicates faith, repentance, and a desire to 
honour the Lord, on the part of him who solicits it. 

A case, that comes nearer to us than any other, is reported in 

* Acts ix. 16, 18, 22. 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 227 

the tenth chapter of this book. It is the conversion of the Gen- 
tiles. Cornelius and his family, his kindred and friends, were 
assembled at Cesarea, and the Apostle Peter is especially sent to 
open to them the kingdom of God. A more attentive and more 
deeply-interested audience never, we presume, assembled, than 
the first Gentile auditory. Peter opened to them the door of faith. 
While he spoke the word to them all, the Holy Spirit fell upon 
them all. They all spoke in foreign tongues. They all, of 
course, believed, and were all baptized by the authority of Peter. 

Some seven years are now passed away, since the commission 
was given to the Apostles. In the mean time, great multitudes 
have been converted. Myriads have been immersed in Jeru- 
salem, Judea, and Samaria. The Gentiles, too, are visited, and 
many of them believed and are baptized: but, as yet, not one 
word, allusion, or reference, that could lead any one to imagine 
that an infant had been ever thought of as a subject of Christian 
baptism. 

The next cases of baptism reported are that of a lady of Thya- 
tira, called Lydia, and her family ; and that of the Philippian 
jailor, and his family. In these families, our Pedobaptist friends 
are peculiarly interested. Having borrowed several Papal tra- 
ditions from the Eoman Church, amongst which is that of infant 
christening, sometimes called infant baptism, and being, from 
family associations, desirous to retain them, they seize these two 
cases with great earnestness, and from them endeavour to ex- 
tract some authority for this consecrated custom. 

On any subject of importance pertaining to this life, we would 
not impose upon ourselves so inconsiderately by gratuitous as- 
sumptions and fallacious reasonings as in this most important 
of all subjects — the salvation of our souls — the will of the Lord 
concerning our duty and happiness. From the beginning of 
Matthew, down to the sixteenth of the Acts of the Apostles, we 
have neither precept nor precedent, neither hint nor allusion on 
the subject of infant baptism. Notwithstanding this, there are 
some of our Pedobaptist brethren who seek to find a warrant 
for this tradition at so late a period, and in cases and details 
that have not a single allusion to it. 

We must, then, candidly examine these two cases. Lydia, it 
is assumed, was a married lady. It is assumed she had children. 
It is also assumed that some of her children were infant children. 
It is also assumed that she had these infant children with her, 



228 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

alth-ougli three hundred miles from home ; for she was now at 
Philippi on business, her home being at Thyatira. On these 
four assumptions is the first argument for infant baptism drawn 
from the four gospels and Acts of Apostles. Now it being much 
more probable that Ljdia was an unmarried rather than a mar- 
ried lady, being a dealer in purple and in ladies' apparel, 
having with her other females and servants on a journey from 
home, the chances are all against these four assumptions. 
What a hypothetical basis for a divine institution ! Was there 
ever a positive ordinance founded upon such assumptions ! But 
the internal evidences are still more fatal to the hypothesis. For 
■she represents herself as a householder and the head of a family. 
** If,'' said she to the Apostle and his suite, " you have judged me 
faithful to the Lord, come into my house and continue there." 
It was a delicate thing for a Christian lady, most probably a 
maid, to invite the Apostle and his fellow-travellers to sojourn 
with her. Hence she places this matter upon Christian grounds. 
If you have confidence in my devotion to the Lord, make my 
bouse your home. They did so, and the sequel shows that her 
ihousehold was composed rather of adults than of infants : for, 
€ays Luke, before the Apostle left Philippi, on coming out of jail 
he visited Lydia's house, and seeing the "brethren there he com- 
forted them and departed. There is not, then, by any incident 
or allusion in this whole afikir, the slightest ground for the hy- 
pothesis that there was an infant in the household of Lydia. 

The jailor's family is as barren of encouragement and of favour 
to the patrons of infant baptism, as that of Lydia. His family 
were all baptized, it is true. But who are they ? Infants 2 
That would be worse than a gratuitous assumption : for we are 
told that before they were baptized he " spake the word of the 
Lord to him and to all that were in his house ;" and we are 
again informed that after his baptism and that of his family, the 
jailor " rejoiced, believing in God with all his family." These 
declarations negative, in very intelligible terms, the assumption 
that infants were baptized in the household of the jailor by the 
authority of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul did not preach 
the gospel to babes, nor did they rejoice, believing in God, be- 
cause of blessings which they then neither could understand nor 
receive. 

There yet remain two other cases of baptism reported in the 
J)Ook of the Acts. These are the cases of the baptism of the Co- 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 229 

rinthians and certain Ephesians. The cases are very obvious. 
That of the Corinthians is very beautifully told in the following 
words, when Paul preached in Corinth: — "Crispus, the ruler 
of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, with all his family ; and 
many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed, and were baptized/' 
What a beautiful comment on the saying, " Faith comes by hear- 
ing — by hearing the word of the Lord/' The Corinthians first 
heard, then believed, and then were baptized. Without hearing 
there is no faith, and without faith there is no fitness for bap- 
tism, and without the profession of that faith no one can be a fit 
subject of Christian baptism. 

It is, indeed, unquestionably true, that faith in the heart is 
essential to the enjoyment of every Christian precept, promise, 
and covenanted blessing ; but faith in the heart unprofessed, or 
Christ in the heart unconfessed, would not, according to the 
practical decisions of the Christian Apostles, authorize any pas- 
tor, evangelist, or professor to baptize any man or woman. 
** With the heart man believeth for righteousness, and with the 
mouth confession is made for salvation.^' Hence the call upon 
the candidate — ^^Dost thou believe f or " If thou believest with 
all thy heart thou mayest.^' The confession elicited by such a 
formal way of putting the question is — " I believe that Jesus is 
the Messiah the Son of God.'' Many of the Corinthians, we are 
informed, heard, believed, and confessed. Now had they not 
confessed their faith, could either Paul, or Luke, or any one 
else say that they believed ? 

The case of the twelve Ephesians, reported in the 19th chap- 
ter of the Acts of the Apostles, is very remarkable and wor- 
thy of special consideration. These twelve men, when asked 
" whether they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed,'' 
declared that, so far from having received the Holy Spirit, they 
had not so much as heard that " there was any Holy Spirit." 
Paul responds — ^^Into what^ then, were you baptized?" " Into 
John's baptism," they immediately replied. The mystery was 
then resolved. In the formula of John's baptism there was no 
Holy Spirit named. But in the Christian baptism there was, 
for so the commission prescribed. This is a full answer to all 
that class of speculators who affirm that because Luke does not 
state that the formula commanded was always pronounced by 
the Apostles — the Apostles did not baptize into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. They cannot 

20 



230 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

appreciate the difference between baptizing in the name or by the 
authority of the Lord, and into the name of the Lord or into the 
name of the Holy Spirit. 

The fact here stated, that these Ephesians had not heard of 
the name of the Holy Spirit, intimates that they had lived re- 
mote from the fields cultivated by the Apostles. They had not 
heard of the affairs of Pentecost, and consequently of Christian 
baptism. But that does not teach us that they had been bap- 
tized during John^s ministry, but rather since it had ceased. 
Hence the necessity of confessing the Lord Jesus, and of being 
baptized into the new revelation of God, or *' into the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.^'* That 
these twelve Ephesians were now immersed into the name of the 
Lord Jesus, is unequivocally affirmed. After this, on the impo- 
sition of the hands of the Apostles, they received the peculiar 
gift of that age — they immediately " spake with tongues and 
prophesied.^' As rationally and as credibly might any one af- 
firm that these twelve Ephesians were twelve infants, as affirm 
that there is "in the four gospels or in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles" one word or syllable in favour of this Papal assumption. 
Tradition, and tradition only, and that from no reputable foun- 
tain, is the only protection and authority for infant baptism. 

But this is not strong enough. Positive laws imply their nega- 
tive. If the negative commandment, *' Thou shalt not steal,'' im- 
ply tJiou shalt be honest ; or if the positive precept, ''Honour thy 
father and thy mother," is equivalent to thou shalt not dishonour 
thy father or thy mother, then, to say the least, the law, " If thou 
believest thou mayest," is equivalent to another law, " If thou 
believest not thou mayest not be baptized." Hence the Lord 
promised salvation not to him who is only baptized, but to him 
who believeth and is baptized. 

The divinely inspired history of the Christian church, down 
to the 64th year of the Christian era, has now been fully ex- 
amined, and every case of baptism on record considered. The 
commission enacted preaching, baptizing, and teaching. The 
Apostles did accordingly first preach the gospel to every indi- 
vidual whom they baptized. Then they immersed just so many 

* The childish efforts of Dr. John Gill, and almost all the old Baptist expositors, 
to make it appear that these twelve men were not baptized into the Christian faith 
on this occasion, are so perfectly futile that it would he a waste of time to expose 
the fallacy of their expositions. 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 231 

as said they believed the gospel. And, in the last place, taught 
them what they must do to please the Lord, to comfort their 
brethren, to convert the world, and to make their own calling 
and election sure. When the baptized are spoken of, they are 
represented as hearing the gospel first, then as believing it, and 
then as being baptized. This is the uniform and immutable 
practice during the apostolic age. 

In the two households reported in the Acts of Apostles, to 
which not a few look for countenance and encouragement in their 
infant baptism, we find not a hint or circumstance looking in 
that direction. Indeed, so unequivocal is the testimony of these 
households in favour of believing subjects, and believing subjects 
only, that all sensible and candid Pedobaptists give them up. 
A few citations from some eminent critics and commentators on 
the case of Lydia and that of the jailor may serve as an expo- 
nent of the views of the most learned and candid Pedobaptist 
commentators. 

Dr. Whitby, Acts xvi. 15, Paraphrase : " And when she, and 
those of her household, we^^e instructed in the Christian faith, in 
the nature of baptism required by it, she was baptized and her 
household.^' 

Limborch: "An undoubted argument, therefore, cannot be 
drawn from this instance, by which it may be demonstrated that 
infants were baptized by the Apostles. It might be that all in 
her house were of a mature age ; who, as in the exercise of a 
right understanding they believed, so they were able to make a 
public profession of that faith when they received baptism.'^ 

T. Lawson, referring to this argument, says, "Families may 
be without children ; they may be grown up, &c. So it is a 
wild inference to ground infant baptism upon.^^ 

Assembly of Divines : "Of the city of Thyatira — a city of 
Asia — here dwelt Lydia, that devout servant of God.^' " And 
entered into the house of Lydia : doubtless to confirm them in 
the faith which they had preached to them — Lydia and hers, 
hearing of their miraculous deliverance, could not but be com- 
forted and confirmed in the truth.^^ Annot. on Acts xvi. 14, 40. 

From the same source we quote Doddridge, Matthew Henry, 
and Calvin, who stand side by side in my library : — 

Doddridge : ^^TJiou sJialt he saved and thine house. The mean- 
ing cannot be that the eternal salvation of his family could be 
secured by his faith ; but that if they also themselves believed, 
they should be entitled to the same spiritual and everlasting 
blessings with himself; which Paul might the rather add, as it 



232 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

is probable that many of them, under this terrible. alarm, might 
have attended the master of the family into the dungeon/' 

Matthew Henry : " The voice of rejoicing, with that of salva- 
tion, was heard in the jailor's house. He rejoiced, believing in 
God, with all his house : there was none in his house that re- 
fused to be baptized, and so made a jar in the ceremony ; but 
they were unanimous in embracing the gospel, which added 
much to the joy/' 

Calvin. "Luke commends the pious zeal of the jailor, be- 
cause he dedicated his whole house to the Lord ; in which also 
the grace of God illustriously appeared, because it brought the 
whole family io a pious consent." 

But I know not whether the candour and justice of these 
Pedobaptists that make such admissions as those of Doddridge, 
Henry, Calvin, &c., or the disingenuousness and violence of 
those commentators, such as Burkett, D'Oyly, and Mant, and 
who say with Burkett, " Having been so many ages in posses- 
sion of this privilege, [infant baptism,] we may more reasonably 
require of the Anabaptists to prove by express Scripture that 
children [infants he means] were not baptized by the Apostlei^ 
when they baptized whole families, whole nations according to 
their commission, than they can require of us to prove that they 
were." Notes on Acts xvi. 15. This from an Episcopalian com- 
mentator — " the Vicar and Lecturer of Dedham" — is no weak 
proof of the childish imbecility which the advocates of infant 
baptism are obliged to assume in defence of their tradition. 
What logician, or lawyer, or common-sense reasoner ever re- 
quires his opponent to prove a negative ! Instead of proving 
that there were infants in those houses, he asks those whom he 
nicknames Anabaptists to prove that there were not infants in 
them ! ! Although we have shown from the descriptions given 
of those families or households, from their hearing the word of 
the Lord, from their rejoicing in God ; and in the case of the 
household of Stephanas, *' the first fruits" or first converts men- 
tioned in the church of Corinth, from their having addicted 
themselves to "the ministry of the saints," that there could not 
have been infants in those families, or any one baptized but be- 
lievers ; still it is not in logic, or law, or reason, to ask or com- 
pel any one to prove a negative. It is passed into a universal 
law that the burthen of proof always lies upon him who affirms 
that there were infants in those families. Should any one place 
himself upon the estate of a Burkett or a Clark, and occupy his 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 233 

.premises for as many years as the centuries of infant baptism or 
infant communion, and when asked to prove his right or show 
his title to occupy the estate claimed by his reverence, should 
say, "Prove, sir, that I have no such right, and then, sir, but 
not till then, will I give up my possession/' I would be pleased 
to hear with what attitude and tone his Grace would reply, 
Show me your right, sir ; hut ask me not to show what you have 
not got. 

The plea of ancient tradition is the strength of Popery and 
the weakness of Protestantism. We advocate not ancient, but 
o^'iginal Christianity. The plea of high antiquity or tradition 
has long been the bulwark of error. It cleaves to its beloved 
mother, Tradition, hoary Tradition^ with an affection that in- 
creases as she becomes old and feeble. Errorists of all schools 
are exceedingly devout and dutiful so far as the precept " Ho- 
nour thy father and thy mother'' is concerned. 



CHAPTER III. 

SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM AND SUBJECTS OF CIRCUMCISION CONTRASTED. 

The doctrine of the Bible, on any particular subject of inquiry, 
can be clearly and satisfactorily ascertained only by a full in- 
duction of all that is found in it upon that subject. When the 
induction is perfect and complete, and fully comprehended on 
any one point, we never can have any more divine light upon 
that subject. This is our method of learning and of teaching 
what the Holy Spirit has taught on any given question. 

Who may, with divine approbation, be baptized ? or, as usu- 
ally expressed, who are the proper subjects of Christian bap- 
tism ? is the question now under consideration. It having been 
universally admitted that baptism is an ordinance of the New 
Testament, or an ordinance of Jesus Christ, our inquiry upon 
the action, subject, or design of Christian baptism must be con- 
fined to an induction of whatever is said on any of these topics 
by the writers of that volume. So far, we have pursued this 
method. Nothing that was written before or after the apostolic 
age can be rationally admitted as evidence in this case. 

In the preceding chapter, we not only examined the commis- 

20* 



234 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

sion given to the Apostles, which instituted and ordained Chris- 
tian baptism; but also adduced and examined every case of 
baptism reported in the Acts of the Apostles, from the giving 
of the commission to the end of that treatise — a period of some 
thirty years. The book, indeed, furnishes only some nine cases 
in all ; but they are of a peculiarly striking, impressive, and 
circumstantial character, and include under them several thou- 
sand persons. The first of these occurs in Jerusalem, and em- 
braces three thousand Pentecostian converts. The subjects of 
that baptism are represented as believers — as persons who had 
previously " gladly received the word,'^ and were then baptized. 
Not one was baptized who had not gladly received the gospel 
that Peter preached. 

The city of Samaria is next on record. When the citizens of 
Samaria heard and believed Philip, "preaching the things con- 
cerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they 
were baptized, both men and women.^' The word children is 
not added ; because there were none such baptized. The parti- 
cularity of detail which mentioned "men and women^' would, 
doubtless, have mentioned infants, if there had been any such 
baptized. 

The Ethiopian nobleman is the third case. That he professed 
faith is just as clearly stated as that he was baptized; or as that, 
after baptism, " he went on his way rejoicing/' 

Saul of Tarsus, afterwards Paul the Apostle, is the fourth 
case. Then come the Gentiles at Cesarea Philippi, and Peter's 
success among them as the fifth case. The whole audience be- 
lieved, received the Holy Spirit, and were baptized. Down to 
this time, we have the prominent details of almost seven years 
from the ascension, and the addition of not less than ten thou- 
sand persons to the original one hundred and twenty, and not 
one infant or child as yet named or alluded to as having been 
baptized. 

Then we have the liousehold of Lydia and of the Philippian 
jailer; in neither of which is there any evidence that there was 
any departure from the preceding usage. Such are the sixth 
and seventh cases on record. Then have we -the case of the 
Corinthians and that of the Ephesians ; in both of which we 
are expressly informed that they ^^ heard, believed, and were bap- 
tized.^^ So that, in the Four Gospels, and in the Acts of the 
Apostles, reaching down to the year of our Lord 63, in which 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 235 

we have the accounts of many myriads of converts, comprising 
Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, we have no example of the bap- 
tism of any other than believing and professing persons. May 
we not, then, say with the utmost assurance, that, so far as all 
sacred history deposes, there is not any evidence whatever that 
a single infant or non-professing person had been admitted to 
baptism during the lives of the Apostles ? 

What now remains of biblical authoritative evidence, except 
the Apostles' Epistles ? To these, then, we must next turn our 
attention. We shall take them up in the order in which they 
usually stand in the received version. In examining them, we 
may expect to find sundry allusions to Christian baptism, and 
from these, doubtless, we may infer some things corroborative 
of the historical evidence now before us. 

In the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Komans, we find a 
very lucid reference to baptism, indicative of the character of 
its subjects. The Apostle affirms, that "so many of us as have 
been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his 
death; therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into 
death — ^that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory 
of his Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life V 
Can this apply to infants ? Have they been baptized into 
Christ's death, and risen with him to walk in a new life ? This 
putting ofi" of the old man and putting on the new is not the work 
of infantile minds, but of those whose senses are exercised to 
discern both good and evil. Had the Komans been accustomed 
to have their infants baptized, could Paul have thus written to 
them? 

There are more frequent allusions to baptism in the first let- 
ter to the Corinthians than in any other epistle. In Acts xviii., 
we have learned who were first baptized in Corinth — men and 
women only. We shall now inquire whether, in his letters to 
them, Paul indicates that any other than men and women, or per- 
sons of age and reflection, had, at the date of this epistle, been 
baptized. 1 Cor. i. 13, he asks the question, ** Were you baptized 
into the name of Paul V Could any persons baptized in in- 
fancy answer such a question ? Could they say either in or 
into what name, 6y whom or for what they had been baptized ? 
This alone intimates that the primitive subjects of baptism 
could remember and reflect upon the design of their baptism, as 
well as the time of it. 



236 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

• In the same connection, he adds, **I thank God that I bap- 
tized none of you but Crispus and Gains. I baptized also the 
household of Stephanas ; and I know not whether I baptized 
any other : for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the 
gospel/' Unless, then, there should be found some infants in 
the household of Stephanas, there is none in this passage. 
But the Apostle relieves us from all dubiety on that subject, by 
informing us of the character of this household : chap. xvi. 15, 
** You know," says he, *'the family of Stephanas, that it is the 
first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to 
the ministry of the saints.'^ They were not infants ; but they 
were the first converts in Achaia, and they were remarkable for 
their devotion to the service of the saints. 

The other allusions to baptism, in this epistle, are rather figura- 
tive than literal references to the subject. Chap. x. 1, "All our 
fathers were baptized into Moses, in the cloud and sea ; and 
they all eat the mystic manna and drank the mystic rock.'^ 
And, again, chap. xii. 13, " For by one Spirit we are baptized 
into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, and we all have drunk 
of the one Spirit.'^ "Else, what shall they do who are baptized 
for the dead, or in the hope of the resurrection of the dead V* 
These all are indicative of thought, faith, feeling, emotion, and 
hope, on the part of the baptized. As yet, there is not found a 
single intimation, allusion, or hint to infant baptism. 

In the letter to the Galatians, we have another reference to 
baptism. It is found, chap. iii. 27 : "As many of you as have 
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." This passage is 
very similar to that quoted from Romans. It is, indeed, more 
definitive of the character of those baptized. They had, with- 
out a single exception, been professors of the faith. Of all the 
baptized of all the churches, in the province of Galatia, Paul 
af&rms there was not one that had not by a profession of faith 
put on Christ. Could any one say this of all the baptized in 
any Pedobaptist church in the world ? We, however, with Paul, 
can say that all the baptized in our church, in the United States, 
have put on Christ — have confessed and assumed him as their 
•Saviour and their Guide. 

We have not yet done with PauFs epistles. To the Ephe- 
sians, he says, chap, iv., "There is one Lord, one faith, one hap- 
tismJ' There are not, then, infant baptism and adult baptism ; 
for these are, certainly, two baptisms, and not one. Sprinkling 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 237 

and pouring are not one immersion, neither are immersion and 
sprinkling one pouring : no more are infant and adult baptism 
one baptism. A baptism for sins pardoned, and a baptism for 
sins to be pardoned, or for no pardon of sins at all, past, pre- 
sent, or future, cannot be regarded as one and the same bap- 
tism. In one baptism, there must be a unity, as respects subject, 
action, and design. 

To the Colossians, chap. ii. 12, Paul speaks of baptism as to 
the Romans. Of them, he says, they were "buried with Christ 
in baptism, in which they were also risen with him through the 
faith of the operation^' (or work) "of God, who hath raised him 
from the dead/' So far, and no farther, deposeth Paul in his 
epistles. We know not another passage, in all his writings, that 
has any allusion wha,tever to the subjects of baptism, not now 
laid before our readers. So far, then, there is but one voice in 
all the writings of Paul and Luke, as well as the other Evan- 
gelists, upon the proper subjects of baptism. As to John's bap- 
tism, its very name precludes the supposition that any but per- 
sons of knowledge and faith could be subjects of it. It is called 
^Hhe baptism of repentance :^^ of course, infants are positively 
excluded. They need not to repent ; nor are they capable of 
repentance. They are not more incapable of repentance than 
they are of sins to be repented of. 

We have yet another allusion to baptism in the Epistles. 
Peter says, " The antetype'' of the salvation of Noah in the ark 
by water, is Christian baptism. "Baptism,'' says he, "doth 
also now save us (not in the putting away of the filth of the 
flesh, but through the answer of a good conscience towards 
God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Infants are wholly 
incapable of the response of a good conscience towards God 
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This requires both 
knowledge, reflection, and faith — of which they are not sus- 
ceptible. 

Now, as James, John, and Jude do not, in their epistles, allude 
at all to baptism, we have laid before the reader every passage 
that relates to the subject of baptism found in the apostolic epis- 
tles. We have, then, the whole history of the Christian church 
from its origin to the close of the volume of inspiration, whether 
in the form of history or epistolary details, without meeting 
with a single case of infant baptism, expressed or implied. In 
all the instances before us, there is not one of doubtful disputa- 



^38 OBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

tion. This, of course, will be satisfactory to all persons who 
believe that Christianity is all found in the New Testament. 
But there are some who, through an erroneous and defectiye 
education, are led to look for it in the law of Moses, or in the 
philosophy of the schools. But, would it not be a reflection 
upon the character of the Founder of Christianity, if, in this 
most essential institution, he had failed to develop his whole 
law to his people ? Had Moses sent the Jews to Noah to learn 
what, as Israelites, they should believe and do, it would have 
been, on his part, an indication of incompetency — a disparage- 
ment of his own commission. Still more preposterous and inad- 
missible the imputation against the mediatorial dignity of the 
Lord Messiah, if, as is assumed, he failed to reveal his own 
ordinances, and sent us to Moses or left us to the schools of 
philosophy to ascertain what are the positive ordinances of his 
religion, and what are the first duties of those who desire con- 
stitutionally to place themselves under his protection and guid- 
ance. We cannot, as intelligent believers of the plenary inspi- 
ration, divine mission, and authority of our Lawgiver and King, 
for one moment admit that he has left us to ivfer from Patri- 
archal or Jewish customs, or from the traditions of the elders, 
what is expedient and fitting as respects the positive ordinances 
of the New Institution. 

We scarcely know whether it is compatible with the dignity 
of our Master, that, in pleading his cause with the corrupters 
of his institution, we should gravely discuss the traditions and 
conjectures by which they have made of no effect his laws. And, 
certainly, infant baptism, so far as it prevails, makes void and 
annuls believer^s baptism. If, then, believer's baptism be a 
divine institution, it must follow that they who prevent it by 
anticipating it, and substituting for it a human institution, do, 
as far as in them lies, annul and make void the commandments 
and ordinances of God. All that are born in every Pedobaptist 
community are deprived of the blessings of the Messiah's insti- 
tution — of the pleasure which the Lord himself had in honour- 
ing the divine institution preached by John, and which all the 
Apostles and first Christians enjoyed during the times of the 
original proclamation of the kingdom of God. 

We, therefore, judge it expedient to advert to some of the rea- 
sonings by which many are deluded, unintentionally it may be, 
in some instances, on the part of those who so far sophisticate 



SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 239^ 

their minds, by fallacious reasonings, into the opinion that in^ 
fant baptism is pleasing to God, because required by him. 
They produce no precept for it. They produce no precedent for 
it in all the oracles of God ; nay, they admit it has neither di- 
vine precept nor example ; but they infer that it is pleasing to 
God and useful to children, if not to men, to be early initiated 
into the church, and made members thereof ; assuming, as they 
advance, that God's Church always had infant members in it, 
and that they inherited blessings consequent upon such mem- 
bership. They, moreover, assume that the Jewish nation was 
the Church of God in the same sense that any community now 
may be called the Church of God ; and that the covenant of cir- 
cumcision is the everlasting covenant or constitution of the 
Christian church, &c. &c. They even argue the identity, the 
perfect and complete identity of the Jewish nation and the 
Christian church. They call it "the Jewish cJiurch,^^ not de- 
siring to call it a nation^ as God and the people called it ; be- 
cause, to say that the Jewish nation and the Christian church 
are identical, is rather too gross a form of speech for Christian 
ears. 

In assuming these premises, which they cannot sustain, it lays 
upon us, not the necessity of assailing their position by formally 
disproving the assertion, but merely of noting the grounds on 
which they sometimes seek inferentially to sustain it. But as 
we write not for mere logicians, but for the great multitude, we 
shall not stand upon logical niceties, but proceed to suggest 
some reasons, and facts, too, why we cannot, for a moment, 
admit the identity of the Jewish nation and the Christian 
church — the identity of their constitutions, or the essential or 
formal identity of their initiatory rites and ordinances. We 
shall rely on a few palpable facts and evidences. 

I. The words nation and church are neither literally nor spi- 
ritually identical. A nation is the whole population of any 
given country, with the mere exception of sojourners and pil- 
grims. A church is a select society called out of a nation. A 
nation, then, is the aggregate population : a church, a select 
community. The former comes from the Roman natio — from 
nasci, natus, to be born — the people born in any given country ; 
the latter, literally, the kuriakee, or house of the Lord, from 
ecclesia, the called out, the chosen people. Hence, the Christian 
community is a people called out of the world — a people formerly 



240 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

called out of the Jewish nation, and out of the Greek and Ro- 
man nations. They constitute a holy and spiritual nation — 
sons and daughters born to God. All, then, that are born of the 
flesh in any country, are its nation ; and those that are born of 
the Spirit in any nation are its church in that nation. "J. na- 
tional church'' is, therefore, a great national absurdity — an ab- 
surdity both in language and in fact. If a whole nation consti- 
tute but one society, how can that one society be called out of 
it ? What remains, when all are taken ? In Roman Catholic 
nations, it is all church and no world ; or rather, all world and 
no church. 

II. The Jewish nation, as a nation, was a part of the descend- 
ants of Abraham, had a national covenant based upon the flesh, 
guarantying only fleshly, temporal, and worldly privileges. 
They were, indeed, as respected the world, an election according 
to the flesh. God loved the fathers and chose their children, not 
for their own sake, but for that of their fathers : Rom. xi. They 
had a law written on tables of stone, a fallible lawgiver, ordi- 
nances concerning the flesh, a carnal priesthood, a brazen altar, 
animal sacrifices, a worldly sanctuary, a temporal and earthly 
inheritance, governed by degenerate kings. Can any one, then, 
consistently affirm that the Jewish and Christian churches, or, 
more properly, the Jewish nation and the Christian church, are, 
therefore, one and the same religious, spiritual, and moral com- 
munity — identically one and the same church ? ! If so, he is 
more infatuated by system than guided by reason or truth ; and, 
therefore, more to be pitied ; or, as the case may sometimes be, 
more to be contemned than reasoned with on the subject. 

III. The Christian church is described as called out of the 
world y born again, regenerated, illuminated, justified, sanctified, 
adopted, saved, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priest- 
hood, a spiritual family, a royal race — having " an inheritance 
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.^' Not so the 
Jewish, in one single point. Not so any nation or people on 
the earth, in the aggregate. 

IV. Hence the Apostles, in calling out of the world a people 
for the Lord, or, what is the same thing, in building a church, 
demanded just as much from the Jew as from the Samaritan or 
from the Greek— as much from the excellent Cornelius and the 
amiable Lydia as from the betrayers and murderers of the Son 
gf God. To the Jew and to the Greek they preached " repent- 



SUBJECTS 01? BAPTISM. 241 

ance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ;'' and 
thus God "visited the nations to take out of them a people for his 
name :'' Acts xv. 14. 

Y. Hence, the Church of Jesus Christ is called a new body — 
a "new man/^ It has a "new covenant,'^ or constitution, a new 
Lawgiver, a new Prophet, a new King. It has a new altar, a 
new sacrifice, a new High-Priest. It has new ordinances, a new 
baptism, a new supper, and a new Lord's day. It was intro- 
duced and consummated by a better Mediator than Moses, and 
is established upon "better promises.'^ 

The door of admission into the Jewish community was as 
wide as the door into the world. No intellectual, moral, or spi- 
ritual qualification was required of any man, in order to admis- 
sion into it. If he were legitimately or illegitimately born of 
Jewish blood, or even bought by Jewish money, he was entitled 
to its initiatory and solemn rites and ordinances. 

It had, indeed, no initiatory rites whatever, except for adult 
proselytes from pagan nations. The children of Jews were not 
circumcised to make them Jews, but they were circumcised be- 
cause they were born Jews. Circumcision only marked their 
flesh and identified it with that of Abraham. It was to them a 
sign, a proof of lineage and of blood; but indicated neither 
moral qualification nor moral change. What profit, then, had 
the Jew in his circumcision? Its national advantages were 
very considerable ; but its chief benefit was, that " unto them 
were committed the oracles of God." They had the means of 
illumination and of salvation. But so have the nations of Eu- 
rope and of Christendom. But does the mere possession of these 
oracles secure the salvation of any man? No, no; not one. 
Still, the possession of them is sometimes, and may often be- 
come, the greatest blessing to those that hold them, and not only 
hold them, but who are held, and led, and guided by them. 

But the advocates for infant baptism argue the identity of the 
Jewish nation and the Christian church for the sake of its al- 
leged covenant of circumcision, and for the purpose of plead- 
ing their national, natural, fleshly infant membership. Though 
it must be admitted, that " the covenant of circumcision" is 
neither the covenant of grace nor the constitution of the Jewish 
nation ; for circumcision is not of Moses, but of Abraham and 
the Patriarchs ; yet they seek to make it the root of their eccle- 
siastic constitution or church covenant, and strangely infer the 

21 



242 SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

rite of infant baptism from the "bloody rite of infant circumr 
cision. Strange, that the putting of water upon an infant could 
doctrinally be the same with taking blood from it ; or the im- 
mersing it in water, identical, in covenant import, with cutting 
off a portion of its flesh 1 That one and the same covenant 
could have had two seals, at two different periods, so discordant 
and uncongenial, would, methinks, require very explicit and 
Tery satisfactory proof. 

But, still more revolting to my mind, that any covenant rati- 
fied by human blood could be the same with that ratified by the 
blood of the Son of God ! And is not the Christian church 
founded upon the new constitution sealed and ratified by the 
blood of Jesus Christ ? "Was, then, the Jewish church, assumed 
to be founded upon the bloody rite of circumcision, identically 
the same with the Christian church founded upon the blood of 
the slain Lamb of God ! 1 In what absurd predicaments do the 
advocates for infant baptism on the ground of the covenant of 
circumcision, place themselves before the world, in their at- 
tempts to sustain the antiquated tradition commended to them 
by the great godmother of antichristian innovations ! 

But as all may not intuitively see the justness or relevancy of 
these remarks, we shall present the subject in a somewhat more 
tangible and intelligible form. We need only premise that when 
any one thing comes in the room or place of another, it must 
occupy the room or place of that thing. Now, as most Pedo- 
baptists of the Presbyterian and Congregational schools affirm 
baptism is a sort of spiritual circumcision, standing in the same 
relation to our church covenant as did circumcision to the Jew- 
ish covenant, we shall proceed to examine this hypothesis, by in- 
quiring in what particular does infant baptism fill the place or 
occupy the room of circumcision. 

On former occasions, we have found some sixteen points in 
which these two institutions do not fill the place or room of one 
another. Indeed, they do not at all resemble one another in any 
one of these particulars : 

1. Males only were subjects of circumcision ; but males and 
females are subjects of Christian baptism. *' Every male child 
among you shall be circumcised.^' The Apostles " baptized both 
men and women." 

2. Circumcision was ordained to be performed on the eighth 
day — the first day of the second week of every • male child. 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. - 243 

Does any party of Pedobaptists occupy the same day in dispens- 
ing the rite of infant baptism ? Not one. 

3. Adult males circumcised themselves. Do adult believers 
baptize themselves ? 

4. Infant males were circumcised by their own parents. Do 
Christian parents baptize their own infant children ? 

5. Infant and adult servants were circumcised neither on flesh 
nor faith, but ^i^jproperty. Does infant baptism ever occupy this 
place ? 

6. Circumcision was not the door into the Jewish church. It 
was four hundred years older than the Jewish church, and in- 
troduced neither Isaac, Ishmael, Esau, nor Jacob into any Jew- 
ish or patriarchal church. It never was to any Jew, its pecu- 
liar and proper subject, an initiatory rite ? Why, then, call in- 
fant baptism an initiatory rite ? 

7. The qualifications for circumcision vreve flesh Q.nd properii/. 
Faith was never propounded, in any case, to a Jew, or his ser- 
vants, as a qualification for circumcision. But do not Pedo- 
baptists sometimes say — If thou believest with all thy heart, 
thou mayest ? 

8. Infant baptism is frequently called a dedicatory rite. Be- 
lievers may dedicate themselves, but cannot dedicate others to 
the Lord in a Christian sense. In the Jewish sense, however, 
the same persons were dedicated to the Lord. But dedication 
was never performed by circumcision. The circumcised were 
afterwards dedicated to the Lord : Numbers viii. 13-21. Why, 
then, make baptism a dedicatory rite in room of circumcision ? 

9. Circumcision, requiring neither intelligence, faith, nor any 
moral qualification, neither did nor could communicate any 
spiritual blessing. No person ever put on Christ, or professed 
faith in circumcision. 

10. Idiots were circumcised : for neither intellect nor any ex- 
ercise of it was necessary to a covenant in the flesh. Is this true 
of baptism? 

11. Circumcision was a visible, appreciable mark, as all signs 
are, and such was its chief design. Does baptism fill its room 
in this respect? 

12. The duty of circumcision was not personal, but parental. 
Parents were bound to circumcise their children. The precept 
ran thus — " Circumcise your children." But in baptism it is 
personal — '' Be baptized, every one of you." 



S44 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

13. The right of a child to circumcision, in no case, depended 
upon the intelligence, faith, piety, or morality of the parents. 
Why, then, in substituting for it infant baptism, are its benefits 
to infants withholden from it, because of the ignorance, impiety, 
or immorality of its parents ? Does infant baptism exactly fill 
the place of circumcision in this particular ? 

14. Circumcision was a guarantee of certain temporal benefits 
to a Jew. Does baptism guaranty any temporal blessing to the 
subject of it? 

15. It was not to be performed in the name of God, nor into 
the name of any being in heaven or earth. Why, then, on the 
plea of coming in the room of circumcision, is any infant bap- 
tized in or into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ? 

16. The subject of circumcision was a debtor to the whole 
law. Is this true of every subject of baptism ? 

If these discrepancies do not fully annul the pretensions of 
baptism as coming in the room and place of circumcision, we 
know not what discrepancies, either in number or kind, would 
be sufficient for such a purpose ! 

These sixteen indisputable facts are truly distinct and demon- 
strable attributes and properties of circumcision, each of which 
differs, and of course the aggregate differs from baptism as now 
administered by Eomanists and Protestants. Had we deemed 
it at all important, we could as easily, in all the other al-* 
leged points of identity between the Jewish and Christian insti- 
tutions, have made out lists of specifications, either more or less 
numerous than the preceding. But that being only to multiply 
words to no profit, I am content to annihilate infant church 
membership as founded upon the identity of signs and seals. A 
thousand vague generalities are worth nothing — absolutely 
worth nothing in a question of identity J^ 

How entirely unfounded and gratuitous the assumption that 
baptism and circumcision are seals of the same covenant, or that 
the former came in room of the latter, must appear evident and 
demonstrative to those who read, with a discriminating eye, the 
history of baptism as reported in the New Testament. 

All the subjects of John's baptism had been circumcised. 
The Messiah was circumcised the eighth day.f As the first- 

* See Chapters VI. and VII. on Circumcision— on Flesh and Spirit. Book I. 
t Luke ii. 21. 



SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 245 

born of his mother, he was on the fortieth day dedicated to the 
Lord according to law. He was baptized in his thirtieth year. 
Was baptism, in his case, a substitute for circumcision ? ! All 
the males baptized by the Harbinger, (and we read of no females 
baptized by him,) had been circumcised. In these cases, then, 
there is no favour shown to the fond speculations of Pedobaptists. 

And who were the persons baptized in Pentecost, Jerusalem, 
and Samaria? The three thousand? The five thousand ? The 
myriads of Jews that had been baptized and were all zealous of 
the law? Had they not all, to a man, been circumcised? Yes, 
circumcised and baptized also. Where now the phantom of bap- 
tism — of infant baptism, a substitute for infant circumcision ? 
Can any one sensibly and truthfully say that the latter is a sub- 
stitute for the former ? 

But one assumption usually requires the aid of another. It is 
assumed that circumcision is done away, and that baptism is 
come in room of it. ^^Done away,''' by what authority ? It was 
not done away, so far down the Christian age as New Testament 
history reaches. A report had gone abroad that Paul forbade 
the Jews to circumcise their children. This, so late as the year 
sixty, brought Paul into some trouble. He was, indeed, at con- 
siderable expense and labor in denying the charge, and in con- 
tradicting those who slandered him in this particular."^ 

The believing Jews continued circumcision till entirely amal- 
gamated with the believing Gentiles in the Christian church. 
They never gave it up because of baptism. It was their national 
badge and peculiarity, and stood not in the way of their bap- 
tism and communion with the believing Gentiles. Those Juda- 
izers who sought to bring the Gentiles into the practice of it were 
severely reproved ; and those Gentiles or Jews that presumed 
to say that it must be added to Christianity, were informed that 
if they added circumcision to the gospel, " they became debtors 
to do the law,'' and " that Christ should profit them nothing." 

There is, then, not any foundation whatever, in the New Tes- 
tament, for the assumed identity of " the Jewish and Christian 
churches,'' or of the covenants on which they are respectively 
founded. The Christian church is founded upon the New Cove- 
nant ; Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, and not 
on the covenant of circumcision. Baptism has not come in the 

* Acts xxi. 24, 25. 
21* 



^46 SUBJECTS OP BAPTISM. 

room of any thing. It is a New Testament ordinance of great 
significance and value to the Christian church. It is a personal 
duty which every believer owes to himself and to the Lord. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ, and all its institutions, are ad- 
dressed to persons who can learn, who can hear, understand, 
and obey. " It proclaims liberty to the captive.'^ It emanci- 
pates man from the slavery of sin. It treats him as one who 
must think, and reason, and learn and obey for himself. It in- 
spires man with a spirit of liberty and mental independence. 
" If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed,'^ is 
one of the Messiah's own promises. 

We have now, I hope, satisfactorily seen, from a full induc- 
tion of every case of baptism reported or alluded to in the his- 
torical and epistolary writings of the New Testament, that there 
is not one instance of infant baptism^ expressed or implied, from 
the first to the last page of that apostolic and Divine Volume, 
There is neither precept, precedent, nor allusion, directly or re- 
motely squinting at it, in all the pages of inspiration. As soon 
may we find the legends of purgatory, auricular confession, 
transubstantiation, the invocation of the Virgin, or prayers for 
the dead, as find in that volume any authority whatever for in- 
fant baptism or infant communion. 

No one need ask. Why, then, so early introduced and so long 
in practice, and why believed by so many great, and learned, 
and excellent men ? Ah me ! what profane tenets, what fata] 
aberrations from the Sacred Scriptures may not be maintained 
and defended in this way ! How ancient the alleged saving vir- 
iue of celibacy — the fasts, the feasts, the penances, and worksf 
of supererogation of Papal superstition ! Nay, how many ex- 
cellent Roman worshippers of the Virgin Mary ! What Fene- 
lons, and Rollins, and Pascals, and St. Pierres adorn the an- 
nals and fill the niches of Papal fame ! If great, and learned, 
and reverend names can authenticate tradition, silence demurs, 
and satisfy weak consciences, there is not an error in Popery nor 
an imagination in the r amblings of monkish fanaticism and re^ 
ligious buffoonery that may not be favourably regarded, and 
cherished with a profound and worshipful respect. But we 
have not so learned Christ. 



BOOK FOURTH. 

CHAPTER I. 

As there cannot be a general providence without a special 
one, so there cannot be a general design in the Christian Insti- 
tution without a specific design in every part of it. If, indeed, 
religion be a reasonable service, there must be a reason for 
every part of it ; and that reason, whatever it may be, is the 
proper design of it ; for reason without design is inconceivable. 
Reason and design are, indeed, inseparable; or, rather, they 
are two names for the same thing. Now, as the whole universe 
is but one grand system of designs terminating in one grand 
result, so the Christian Institution is one great system of means 
and ends terminating in one grand consummation — the supreme 
glory of its Author, in the purity and happiness of his intelli- 
gent and moral offspring. 

The gospel system is a system of redemption — a deliverance 
of its subjects from ignorance, guilt, and bondage. It contem- 
plates a new creation — a transformation of man in body, soul, 
and spirit. It is, therefore, a great system of physical, moral, 
and spiritual means and ends. Hence, its doctrine, its precepts, 
and its promises are but developments of a remedial system, 
originating in the benevolence of God, guided by his wisdom, 
and perfected by his power. 

This scheme of mercy has its parts ;~ and each of these parts 
has its own peculiar object. Faith is not a substitute for re- 
pentance, holiness, or righteousness ; but a means to these ends. 
As a means, it is, indeed, indispensable to every one of them. 
Prayer, reading or hearing, and meditation are means of sanc- 
tification. But any one of these, without the other, would be 
incomplete and incompetent to the end proposed. So of the 
positive institutions of the Christian system. Baptism, the 
Lord's day, and the Holy Supper are indispensable provisions 

247 



248 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

of remedial mercy. Not one of them can be dispensed with by 
any one who desires the perfection of the Christian state and 
of the Christian character. Eating, drinking, sleeping, exer- 
cising, though not of the same nor of equal importance, are, 
nevertheless, all essential to the preservation and comfortable 
enjoyment of the human system. 

These things premised, we are induced, according to our plan, 
to institute an inquiry into the use of Christian baptism, or, 
rather, into the design of it. It is a conspicuous and promi- 
nent part of the Christian religion, and is spoken of and alluded 
to more than one hundred times in the New Testament. It is 
worthy of a full examination, and of the most respectful con- 
sideration and regard. It could not occupy so much space in 
so small a volume, and yet be considered as a matter of indif- 
ference, or of but little importance. We must, therefore, regard 
it with the respect and reverence due to a very prominent divine 
institution. 

But the design of this institution has long been thrown into 
the shade because of the wordy and impassioned controversy 
about what the action is, and who may be the proper subject of 
it. Now, it must be confessed that, whatever importance there 
may be in settling these questions, that importance is wholly to 
be appreciated by the design of the institution. This is the 
only value of it. The question concerning the value of any ac- 
tion is incomparably superior to the question, What is the act 
itself? or to the questions. Who may perform it? or. Upon 
whom may it be performed? We are, therefore, induced to 
believe that the question now before us is the all-interesting 
important question — indeed, the transcendent question in this 
discussion. 

The appeal, therefore, must be made to the proper tribunal. 
It must be carried up to the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus 
Christ. What, then, do ihQj propose as the design of New Tes- 
tament baptism? We say New Testament baptism, because we 
have in that book " The baptism of John,'' and the baptism 
ordained by Jesus Christ. Although not one, nor identical, 
they may materially unfold and illustrate each other. They 
both came from heaven. They both immersed believing and, 
penitent persons, and were alike indicative of divine wisdom 
and benevolence. 

The Harbinger was sent "to prepare a people for the Lord.'*- 



DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 249 

He designed to enlighten and purify them. Hence he was both 
a preacher of faith and reformation, and proclaimed " the bap- 
tism of repentance for the remission of sins J' It would, then, 
appear from the very annunciation of John^s baptism, that its 
design was of a transcendently important and interesting cha- 
racter. 

The form of expression is exceedingly familiar and intelli- 
gible ; and, were it not for an imaginary incongruity between 
the means and the end, or the thing done and the alleged pur- 
pose or result, no one could, for a moment, doubt that the de- 
sign of baptism was " for the remission of sins.^^* 

The form of expression is the most common in language, and 
especially in the simple and sacred style of the Apostles and 
Evangelists. From the few examples at the foot of the page, 
any one may see with what little reason and evidence any one 
can intimate that the form of the expression does not indicate 
the design of an action. Indeed, if this preposition does not 
intimate design, we might well ask, What other word in that 
language could suggest such an idea ? 

Nor is it only casually intimated that New Testament bap- 



* The preposition translated /or in this connection of means and designs is often 
BO translated ; and might have been hundreds of times much better so translated 
m the conmion version of the New Testament, than by into or unto, or to. 

We shall give a few examples, selected out of many such in the common ver- 
sion: — 

Matt. V. 13 : "It is good /or nothing." "Take no thought for to-morrow:'* vi. 34, 
**Do it /or a testimony to them :" viii. 4. " Far a testimony against them :" x. 18. 
"Shed for many /or the remission of sins:" xxvi. 28. "Told for a memorial of 
her :" xxvi. 13. " Gave them /or the potter's field" — ^^for the burial of strangers ;" 
xxvii. 7, 8. 

Do not these indicate the design or the end for which a thing is given or done ? 
Did not the Messiah shed his blood /or the remission of sins? Was not the money 
given /or the potter's field ? Was it not /or the burial of strangers? 

As Luke writes " the Gospel" and " Acts of the Apostles," we shall give a few 
examples from him also : — " J^or the fall and arising of many in Israel." " For a 
sign which shall be spoken against :" Luke ii. 34. " For, there/ore, [for this pur- 
pose,] I am sent:" iv. 43. "Take nothing for your journey :" ix. 3. "Buy meat 
for all this people :" ix. 13. " He is not fit for the kingdom of God :" ix. 62. 
« Goods laid up for many years :" xii. 19. " It is not fit for the land, or /or the 
dunghill :" xiv. 24. " Be baptized for the remission of sins :" Acts ii. 38. "Gave 
it to him for a possession :" vi. 5. " Nourished him for her own son :" vi. 21. 
"Came here /or that intent:" ix. 21. "Are come up /or a memorial :" x. 4. " For 
the work I have appointed them :" xiii. 2. " That thou shouldest be for salva- 
tion :" xiii. 47. " For the work which they fulfilled :" xiv. 26. These are but a 
few examples from Luke. 



250 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

tism was ordained for this purpose. It is tlie only purpose for 
which it was ordained ; whether in the hands of John or of the 
twelve Apostles. What could be more plain or intelligible than 
such forms of expression as the following: — "John did baptize 
in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the 
remission of sins.'' (Mark i. 4.) It was not a baptism, but the 
baptism of repentance. It was not for remission of sins, but 
for the remission of sins. The fixtures of language could not 
more safely secure the intention of an institution. It was not 
because your sins have been remitted; but it is for, or in order to 
the remission of sins. 

Nor is this a form of expression peculiar to one Evangelist. 
Luke, as well as Mark, uses the same formula: — "And John 
came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism 
of repentance for the remission of sins.'' Luke iii. 3. John's 
"baptism was as certainly ^for the remission of sins' ^ as it was 
^'the baptism of repentance J' The death of the Messiah, or the 
blood of the new covenant, was not more certainly yor the remis- 
sion of sins J so far as the expression goes, than was the baptism 
of John for the remission of sins. Indeed, they are not merely 
similar, but are identical expressions in both cases. It does not, 
however, follow that they are in the same sense "for the remis- 
sion of sins." But that they are, in some sense, for the remis- 
sion of sins, can be denied by no man who either understands 
the language of the Bible or the language of men. 

From the apostolic style, one might as reasonably conclude 
that Jesus died because man's sins had been remitted, or because 
the sin of the world had been taken away, as that men are to 
be baptized, or that John baptized men ^^ because their sins had 
been remitted." To take such freedom with language, with the 
language of the Bible, would be to make the word of God of no 
effect ; or, what is the same thing, of no certain interpretation : 
in other words, of no meaning. If goods are laid up for past 
years — if men buy food for those who never can use it — if men 
provide money for the expenses of journeys already paid for, — 
then may it be said that John baptized for sins already remitted ; 
or that his baptism was for those who were already cleansed 
from their pollutions. 

When the Lord said, " To this end was I born, and for this 
cause came I into the world," does he not intimate that he had 
a design in coming into the world ? When Stephen said that 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 251 

Pharaoh cast out the children of the Israelites to iJie end"^ that 
they might not live, does he not mean that their destruction was 
designed by their exposure ? When Stephen again says (Acts 
vii. 5) that God promised Canaan to Abraham ^^Jbr a posses- 
sion/' was it not his design to invest him with that inheritance? 
And when it is said by the people of Damascus, (Acts ix. 21,) 
that Saul of Tarsus came to that city ^^Jbr the intent that he 
might'' persecute the disciples ; and if eis, the word always 
used when baptism and remission of sins are connected, be the 
word in all these cases containing the sense of "for,'' "m order 
iOy'' 'Ho fhe intent tJiat,^' or "for the intent," shall we hesitate to 
allow, that, in connection with remission of sins, it has the 
same meaning; or, that our translators so understood it? 
Should any one be so regardless of his reputation, he would 
be as unsafe as unworthy to be reasoned with on any question 
of religion or morality, whenever he stands committed to its 
affirmative or negative. 

So far, then, as the force of the preposition is of any conse*. 
quence or value to show a connection between baptism and 
remission of sins, it is incontrovertibly indicative of that con- 
nection. But were it translated in every case by into or unto, 
(versions of the word very common in all writings, sacred and 
profane,) it is as certainly, though not so obviously to all minds, 
indicative of such a connection. To baptize into remission, or 
unto remission, intimates that the subject of that act is about 
passing into a new state ; as entering into partnership, or enter- 
ing into marriage, indicates that it is for such purposes the 
action, whatever it may be, is performed. " Unto what, then, 
were you baptized?" (Acts xix. 3,) is equivalent to the question, 
For what were you, then, baptized; or, into wliat were you, 
then, baptized ? In either case, the relation of the person bap- 
tized is changed. 

It only remains in this part of our essay that we present, in 
the order of the inspired books, all the passages that plainly 
import any connection between baptism and remission of sins. 
They are the following : — 

1. "John did baptize — and preach the baptism of repentance 
for the remission of sins." Mark i. 4. 



' * Here it is £(?, /or, to the end that, the word always used in reference to "bap- 
tism for the remission of sins." 



252 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

2. " The people of Judea and Jerusalem were baptized by liim 
in Jordan, confessing their sins/' Mark i. 5. 

3. "And he came into all the country about the Jordan, 
preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." 
Luke iii. 3. 

4. *'Kepent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name 
of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins.'' Acts ii. 38. 

5. "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, invoking 
the name of the Lord." Acts xxii. 16. 

These are oracles as express and explicit as any we can ima- 
gine. Any one of them would establish the connection for 
which we plead. For, if once such a connection is clearly esta- 
blished, it depends not upon the repetition of it, but upon the 
clearness and definiteness of the expression of it. This is inti- 
mated clearly in another passage : — 

6. "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism J' Eph. iv. 5. 
Now, if there be but one baptism, and if it appear that both 

the New Testament dispensations of baptism, by John and by 
the Apostles, clearly affirm a connection between baptism and 
remission of sins — must it not follow that the onli/ divinely-insii' 
tuted baptism is for the remission of sins. 

It may, however, tend to the confirmation of those halting 
between two opinions, to inquire, whether there be any other 
connection between baptism and any thing else noted in the 
Christian Scriptures; and, if so, of what nature and kind it is? 

In the first place, then, no one is commanded to be baptized 
for any thing else ; and no one is ever said to have been bap- 
tized ybr any thing else, than for the remission of sins. This is 
a very important fact, and worthy of much reflection. 

I know, indeed, it may be said that there are two or three 
forms of expression that might be translated in such a way as 
to intimate some other connection. For example : — 

"As many of you as were baptized /or Jesus Christ were bap- 
tized ybr his death." Rom. vi. 3. 

"Know you not that all our fathers were baptized ybr Moses — 
in the cloud and in the sea ?" 1 Cor. x. 2. 

"For by one Spirit we are all baptized ybr one body." 1 Cor. 
xii. 13. 

"For as many of you as have been baptized ^br Jesus Christ, 
have been baptized j^r his death." 

These four passages complete the canon — ^the whole volume 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 253 

on the subject of the relation of baptism to spiritual rights, 
privileges, and honours. We have, for the sake of uniformity, 
and of giving weight to all conceivable objections, preferred the 
common version of these passages. 

The reader will remember, that in all these it is, in the com- 
mon version, "m^o Christ,^ ^ ^HntoJiisdeathy^' ^^into one hody,^' &c. 
Whether, then, we readybr or into one body, and ybr or into his 
death, the sense is the same. If any one be baptized for the Lord, 
for his death, or for his body, as a design^ as an end^ it is for the 
sake of the rights, privileges, and honours of his body, or for the 
sake of the rights, privileges, and honours accruing from his 
death, his church, or himself. Of all these, remission of sins 
is the leading and the introductory blessing — from which follow, 
as consequences, all spiritual privileges, honours, and immuni- 
ties. "For, if you be Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, 
and heirs according to the promise.'' ** 

Evident, then, it is, that there is no specific design on account 
of which any one can constitutionally be baptized, except it be 
for the remission of sins previously committed. We are not 
commanded to be baptized for faith, for repentance, for justifi- 
cation, for regeneration, for sanctification, for adoption, for the 
Holy Spirit, for eternal life. We are commanded to be baptized 
"ybr the remission of sins^^ not for the remission of ^^ original 
sin" — not for the remission of sins yet to be committed or in 
advance ; but for the remission of sins that are past, that have 
been committed, "through the forbearance of God." 

True, when immersed into Christ, we have "put on Christ;'^ 
and, of course, are in him and under him, interested in all the 
provisions of that covenant of life and salvation of which he is 
the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and the Mediator. Still, 
through faith and repentance, we are commanded to be baptized 
for one specific purpose, just as much as we celebrate the Lord's 
day and the Lord's supper for a specific purpose. Every Chris- 
tian institution has, indeed, its own peculiar and specific object, 
which can be neither secured nor enjoyed so well any other way. 

Having, then, philologically ascertained that, in the sacred 
writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of our King, the bap- 
tisms of the New Testament were all for the remission of sins, and 
for no other specific purpose ; our second leading inquiry must 
be. In what sense is baptism for the remission of sins? The connec- 
tion between baptism and remission being now fully ascertained 

22 



254 BESiaN OP BAPTISM. 

and established, the nature of that connection comes deservedly 
under our immediate examination. 

The relations of time in which one thing may stand to an- 
other, are antecedent, simultaneous, and consequent. But the 
question is not about their relations as respects mere time, 
place, or circumstance ; but as respects natural or necessary 
dependence — such as that of cause and effect. We contemplate 
the relations of persons and things with regard to the causes of 
their existence or the various influences which they may exert 
on one another. When a man's salvation, for example, is some- 
times ascribed to faith, to repentance, to baptism, to the grace 
of God, to the blood of Christ, to his own efforts, we are desirous 
to know why a man's salvation should be assigned to so many 
causes. To prevent confusion, or to relieve the mind from a 
perplexed, indistinct, and imperfect conception of the influences 
of numerous and various causes, affecting the existence of any 
thing, either as respects itself or our conceptions of it, we have 
given to the word cause a very comprehensive meaning, and 
have been obliged to select names to express the various appli- 
cations of the word. Thus, we have a moving or original cause, 
an efficient or meritorious cause, an instrumental cause, a concur^ 
rent cause, ajinal cause."^ 

Every theory of redemption and salvation, with more or less 
clearness of perception and precision of expression, admits the 
necessity of such distinctions as these. Since the days of St. 
Augustine, Calvin, and Luther, since the Jansenists and their 
rival orders of monkery, all writers and reasoners on this sub- 
ject, have been constrained to admit of a system of causes co- 
operating in man's salvation. 

The kingdoms of nature, — mineral, vegetable, and animal, — 
are replete with such combinations of concurring causes in the 
various results of the divine wisdom, power and goodness. 
There is not any thing in the universe of created things, that is 
the result of a single cause, as to its being, its continued being, 
or to its well-being. Indeed, the different attributes of God 
himself are so many concurrent causes in our conceptions of 
things, both material and mental. Portions of nature, celestial 
and terrestrial, are to be ascribed to his wisdom, his knowledge, 



* See, in Book v., the article on Justification, 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 255 

his power, his goodness ; and every single result has in it the 
concurrence of all these. 

But, to keep distinctly before our minds the design and place 
of Christian baptism — (for we must observe, that for most 
minds, it is enough to read the precept, ^^ Repent and he baptized, 
every one of yoUf for the remission ofo sins, ^^ without presuming 
to comprehend or develop the necessity of it) — two facts are 
most obvious : — First, that all men alike need the Christian in- 
stitution ; second, that, whatever any one institution is to any 
one proper subject of it, it is in some degree the same to every 
other proper subject of it. Therefore, we all need every divine 
institution. 

Philosophers are generally more curious and inquisitive than 
wise. They delight to comprehend every thing, or to assume to 
understand all mysteries. But who can specify, enumerate, and 
sort up the causes that convert one grain of corn into the flesh, 
blood, bones, and covering of a man, a horse, or any other ani- 
mal that lives upon it? Or can set forth the number, the variety, 
and the order of the causes that are necessary to animal life, 
health, and comfort ? If not, then why so dogmatical and prag- 
matical — so inquisitive and positive — so dictatorial and absolute 
in matters solely depending upon the positive will and law of 
God? 

To conclude our remarks on this part of the subject, we must 
assign to every institution of Heaven its own proper place, whe- 
ther in nature, in providence, or in redemption. "We must give 
to grace, to faith, to repentance, to baptism, to the purpose of 
the Father, to the hlood of the Son, to the sanctifi cation of the 
Holy Spirit — to each of these severally its proper place and im- 
portance in redemption and salvation ; and to all of them a 
concurrent efficacy in the rescue and delivery of man from sin, 
misery, and ruin. 

While, then, we must say with Peter, "Baptism doth also now 
save us,'^ we will also say with Paul, that "we are saved by 
grace,^' "justified by faith,'' ^'redeemed by the blood of the Lord 
Jesus,'' "sanctified by the Spirit of our God," and with James, 
that " a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." 

We do not, however, place baptism among good works. Good 
works have our brethren, and neither God nor ourselves, for 
their object. They directly and immediately terminate upon 
man; while, in their reflex influence, they glorify God, and 



256 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

beatify ourselves. In baptism, we are in spirit, as well as in 
person, buried with the Lord, "wherein also we are raised with 
him.^' Dead men neither bury themselves nor raise themselves 
to life again. In baptism, we are passive in every thing but in 
giving our consent. We are buried and we are raised by an- 
other. Hence, in no vieW of baptism can it be called a good 
work. The influence which baptism may have upon our spi- 
ritual relations is, therefore, not because of any merit in the 
act as our own ; not as a procuring cause, but merely as an in- 
strumental and concurring cause, by which we "put on Christ,^-* 
and are united to him formally as well as in heart, entering 
into covenant with him, and uniting ourselves to him in his 
death, burial, and resurrection. Hence, said the Apostle, "As 
many of you as have been baptized into Christ have been bap- 
tized into his death'^ — "have put on Christ.'' 

While, then, baptism is ordained for remission of sins, and 
for no other specific purpose, it is not as a procuring cause, as a 
meritorious or efi&cient cause, but as an instrumental cause, in 
which faith and repentance are developed and made fruitful 
and effectual in the changing of our state and spiritual relations 
to the Divine Persons whose names are put upon us in the very 
act. 

It is also a solemn pledge and a formal assurance on the part 
of our Father, that he has forgiven all our offences — a positive, 
sensible, solemn seal and pledge that, through faith in the blood 
of the slain Lamb of God, and through repentance, or a heart- 
felt sorrow for the past, and a firm purpose of reformation of 
life, by the virtues of the great Mediator, we are thus publicly 
declared forgiven, and formally obtain the assurance of our ac- 
ceptance and pardon, with the promised aid of the Holy Spirit 
to strengthen and furnish us for every good thought, and word, 
and work. 

Some have such a puerile and inadequate conception of Chris- 
tian baptism, as to regard it as a mere ceremonial introduction 
into the church — a way of making a profession of the Christian 
religion — no way affecting the spiritual relations of the sub- 
ject. This view of it ought to have been expressed by such a 
precept as the following: — "Repent and be baptized, every one 
of you, for admission into the church.'' But no such precept, 
in form, in substance, or in sense, is found in God's own book. 
As we have, then, but one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, and 



DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 257 

that baptism is "for the remission of sins'' — ^to give us, through 
faith and repentance, a solemn pledge and assurance of pardon, 
any other baptism is a human invention and of no value ; want- 
ing, as it does, the sanction of the Lord Jesus, who ordained it, 
and submitted to the baptism of John as an example to others 
to honour and obey every divine institution. But there are 
other passages of Sacred Scripture that both illustrate and con- 
firm the views now presented. 

It is a very important and interesting fact, that no great doc- 
trine or institution of Christianity wholly depends upon a single 
passage, or even upon a mere plurality of passages. Such is 
not the Lord's way of teaching his will to weak and erring mor- 
tals. He gives us line upon line, precept upon precept, here a 
little and there a little ; wisdom for the wise, knowledge for the 
prudent, and information for all. No great doctrine, no im- 
portant principle, no solemn, moral, or religious duty ever was 
confined to a single enunciation. The more important the duty 
or the more valuable the privilege, the more ample, explicit, 
and frequent the allusion to it, except in cases so plain and of 
such easy intelligence and comprehension that he may run that 
reads it. 

Baptism, a new institution, is an ordination of great signifi- 
cance, and of the most solemn and sublime importance. It is 
a sort of embodiment of the gospel ; and a solemn expression 
of it all in a single act. Hence the space and the place assigned 
it in the commission. It is a monumental and commemorative 
institution, bodying forth to all ages the great facts of man's 
redemption as developed and consummated in the death, burial, 
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, immediately 
upon the first constitutional promulgation of it on the part of 
the Christian Lawgiver and Saviour, he adds, "jETe that believeth 
and is baptized shall be savedJ' 

This has in all past time, and, will in all future time impart 
to this institution a solemnity, a significance, and an importance 
which no art or ingenuity of corrupted Christianity can long 
obscure or successfully deface. It will give to it an authority 
and a claim upon the understanding, the conscience, and the 
affections of the humble and the devout, which no sophistry or 
hardihood can weaken or destroy. To associate faith and bap- 
tism as antecedents, whose consequent is salvation, no matter 
what the connection may be, will always impart to the institu- 

22* 



258 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

tion a pre-eminence above all other religious institutions in the 
•world. The Lord does not say, he that believeth and obeys this 
or that moral precept shall be saved; but "He that believeth 
the gospel and is baptized shall be saved.'^ This very intelli- 
gible and prominent annunciation, just before his ascension, 
greatly explains and justifies the new precept promulged by 
Peter, a few days afterwards, when the ascended Lord had sent 
down his Holy Spirit to advocate his cause. Peter, after the 
new light imparted in the commission, feared not to say to the 
inquiring Jews, " Repent and he baptized, every one of you, in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins J' Nor did any 
one, so far as the history of the apostolic labors is reported, ever 
express a doubt or an inquiry upon the connection thus solemnly 
established between faith, repentance, baptism, and remission 
or salvation. So far from this, that the Apostles frequently 
allude, to the subject in their epistles as though, by universal 
consent, it was understood to be a symbol of moral purification — 
a washing away of sin in a figure, declarative of a true and real 
remission of sin — a formal and definite release of the conscience 
from the feeling of guilt and all its condemnatory power. 

There remains, in the historical books of the New Institution, 
another very striking evidence of the proper design of Christian 
baptism. It being a change of the verbiage of Peter, and from 
another speaker, and addressed to a great sinner, it is peculi- 
arly striking and impressive. It is the address of Ananias to 
Saul of Tarsus, than whom had not then lived a more fierce 
and hostile spirit opposed to the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. 
When commanded to wait for a message from the Lord, Ana- 
nias waited upon him ; and, after a very short introduction, he 
said to Saul of Tarsus, " Arise, brother Saul, and be baptized, 
and wash away thy sins, invoking the name of the Lord.^' A 
most unguarded and unjustifiable form of address, under the 
isanction of a divine mission, if baptism had not for its design 
\hQ formal and definite remission of sins, according to the Pen- 
tecostian address. 

From the express authority and evidence of Apostles and 
Evangelists, without any inferential reasoning, we feel con- 
strained to conclude that the baptisms of this New Testament, 
both of John and Jesus, were for the true, real, and formal re- 
mission of sins, through faith in the Messiah, and a genuine 
repentance towards God. We shall, however, for the sake of 



DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 259 

some of our readers who are slow to believe all that the Apos»- 
tles have spoken, devote to the subject another essay, in the 
further examination of the sacred writings, and in some notices 
of the traditions of the fathers. 



CHAPTER 11. 

DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 



Every divine institution has its own specific design. They 
all, indeed, have one grand, general design ; — the glory of God, 
and the happiness of man. But, as neither the glory of God 
nor the happiness of man consists in one item, or in on« mani- 
festation, his precepts and our acts of obedience are necessa- 
rily both numerous and various. Nature and religion being the 
offspring of the same supremely wise and benevolent mind, may 
be supposed to carry in them conclusive evidence of the same 
divine original. Hence, the numerous and various parables 
and allusions to nature on the part of the great Teacher, while 
developing that gracious institution, of which he is the begin- 
ning, middle, and end. 

Now as, in nature, no one ordinance or institution can be- 
come a substitute for another, so, in Christianity, no one ordi- 
nance can either be dispensed with or substituted for another, 
but at the detriment and loss of the subject. There is a specific 
virtue in every ordinance of religion, as in every ordinance of 
nature. There is no substitute for air, light, heat, or moisture, 
in either the vegetable or animal kingdom ; and there is no sub- 
stitute for faith, repentance, and baptism, in the present dispen- 
sation of grace. It is not for us to ask, nor is it due to us from 
God to give, the reason why. He ordains and commands bless- 
ings to be bestowed in his own way ; and it is alike our duty and 
our happiness implicitly to obey and enjoy them. We have only 
to ascertain the fact that God has so commanded, and our duty 
then is to obey. 

All the ordinances of Christianity are means of grace. Faith, 
repentance, baptism, the Lord's day, the Lord's supper, the 
church and its ministry, are all means of grace. There are, 
indeed, many graces requisite to the completion and perfection 
of Christian character. There is the grace of faith — ^the grace 



260 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

of repentance — the grace of forgiveness — ^the grace of justi- 
fication — the grace of sanctification — the grace of adoption — 
the grace of assurance — the grace of perfection — the grace of 
happiness. There are means of each and of all of these graces. 
Is there the grace of faith ? There are the means of faith ; — 
the well-attested testimony of God. Is there the grace of re- 
pentance ? There are the arguments drawn from our guilt and 
God's infinite mercy. Is there the grace of forgiveness ? There 
are the blood of Christ, the love of God, and the promises ad- 
dressed to our faith. Is there the assurance of pardon ? There 
is baptism for the remission of sins ; and, as a consequence, the 
love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Is 
there the grace of justification ? There are the death of Christ, 
faith in it, repentance, and a baptism into his death. Is 
there the grace of adoption ? There is the Spirit of God bear- 
ing witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God. Is 
there the grace of perfection? There are the precepts, the 
example of Christ, the Lord's day, the Lord's supper, the fel- 
lowship and prayers of kindred spirits, and the obedience of 
faith. Is there the grace of happiness ? Then there are the 
love of God shed abroad in the heart, the favour of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Ghost — a pledge 
and an earnest of the eternal rest. 

But we have now before us the special design of baptism, as 
the assurance of remission ; a pledge of pardon, of our burial 
with Christ, and our resurrection to a new life. This is " bap- 
tism for the remission of sins.'' That baptism was designed 
for the remission of sins, for a pledge and an assurance of par- 
don, through the Messiah, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
we shall now first .proceed to prove. 

1. Testimony of the Harbinger himself: "In those days 
came John the Baptist ; the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord ! Make his paths straight. 
John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of 
repentance for the remission of sins." Mark, the Evangelist, 
chap. i. 2, 3, 4. 

2. Luke also affirms, chap. iii. 3 : "And he came into all the 
country about the Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance 
for the remission of sins." 

3. Peter, to whom the keys of the approaching Reign of 
Heaven were committed by the Lord in person, in opening the 



DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 261 

gospel kingdom, when first asked by penitent believers what 
they should do in order to remission, answers — "Kepent,''or 
reform, *^and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins/' Acts ii. 37. 

4. This connection between faith and baptism for the remis- 
sion of sins, nay, for salvation itself, was, indeed, first announced 
by the Lord in person, in giving the commission after his resur- 
rection — "Preach the gospel to every creature.'^ *' Pie that be* 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved.'' Mark xvi. 16. 

5. Ananias, sent specially to Saul of Tarsus by the Lord, 
preaches after the same manner, when he says. Acts xxii. 16, 
" Arise, brother Saul, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, 
calling upon the name of the Lord." 

6. Cornelius, the centurion, on hearing Peter, was hearing 
words by which an angel told him, "he and his family should 
be saved." And when these words were announced, Peter com- 
manded him and all present forthwith to be baptized. Acts x. 

. 7. We shall hear Luther, the great Reformer: — 

" This is not done by changing of a garment, or by any laws 
or works, but by a new birth, and by the renewing of the in- 
ward man, which is done in baptism, as Paul saith, * All ye 
that are baptized have put on Christ.' Also, * According to his 
mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renew- 
ing of the Holy Ghost.' Tit. iii. 5. For besides that they who 
are baptized are regenerated and renewed by the Holy Ghost to 
a heavenly righteousness and to eternal life, there riseth in them 
also a new light and a new flame ; there riseth in them new and 
holy affections, as the fear of God, true faith, and assured hopes, 
&c. There beginneth in them also a new will, and this is to put 
on Christ truly and according to the gospel. 

" Therefore, the righteousness of the law, or of our own works, 
is not given unto us in baptism ; but Christ himself is our gar- 
ment. Now Christ is no law, no lawgiver, no works, but a di- 
vine and an inestimable gift, whom God hath given unto us, 
that he might be our justifier, our Saviour, and our Redeemer. 
Wherefore to be appareled with Christ according to the gospel, 
is not to be appareled with the law or with works, but, with an 
incomparable gift ; that is, with remission of sins, righteousness, 
peace, consolation, joy of spirit, salvation, life, and Christ him- 
self." Luther on Galatians: Phila. 1801, 8vo. p. 302. 

8. We shall next hear Calvin : — 

" From baptism our faith derives three advantages, which re- 
quire to be distinctly considered. The first is, that it is proposed 
to us by the Lord as a symbol and token of our purification \ or, 



262 DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 

to express my meaning more fully, it resembles a legal instru- 
ment properly attested, by which he assures us that all our sins 
are cancelled, effaced, and obliterated, so that they will never 
appear in his sight, or come into his remembrance, or be im- 
puted to us. For lie commands all who believe^ to he baptized for 
the remission of their sins. Therefore, those who have imagined 
that baptism is nothing more than a mark or sign by which we 
profess our religion before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of 
their sovereign as a mark of their profession, have not consi- 
dered that which was the principal thing in baptism ; which is, 
that we ought to receive it with this promise, * He that believeth 
and is baptized, shall be saved.' Mark xvi. 16. 

"2. In this sense we are to understand what is said by Paul, 
that Christ sancti'fieth and cleanseth the church * with the wash- 
ing of the water by the word,' Ephes. v. 26 ; and, in another 
place, that * according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing 
of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost,' Tit. iii. 5 ; 
and by Peter, that * baptism doth save us,' 1 Pet. iii. 21. For 
it was not the intention of Paul to signify that our ablution and 
salvation are completed by the water, or that water contains in 
itself the virtue to purify, regenerate, and renew ; nor did Peter 
mean that it was the cause of salvation, but only that the know- 
ledge and assurance of it is received in this sacrament : which 
is sufficiently evident from the words they have used. For Paul 
connects together the * word of life' and 'the baptism of water ;' 
as if he had said, that our ablution and sanctification are an- 
nounced to us by the gospel, and by baptism this message is 
confirmed. And Peter, after having said that 'baptism doth 
save us,' immediately adds, that it i? ' not the putting away the 
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God,' 
which proceeds from faith. But on the contrary, baptism pro- 
mises us no other purification than by the sprinkling of the blood 
of Christ ; which is emblematically represented by water, on ac- 
count of its resemblance to washing and cleansing. Who, then, 
can pretend that we are cleansed by that water, which clearly 
testifies the blood of Christ to be our true and only ablution ? 
So that, to refute the error of those who refer all to the virtue of 
the water, no better argument could be found, than in the signi- 
fication of baptism itself, which abstracts us as well from that 
visible element, which is placed before our eyes, as from all 
other means of salvation, that it may fix our minds on Christ 
alone. 

"3. Nor must it be supposed that baptism is administered 
only for the time past, so that for sins into which we fall after 
baptism, it would be necessary to seek other new remedies of 
expiation, in I know not what other sacraments, as if the virtue 
of baptism were become obsolete. In consequence of this error, 
it happened in former ages, that some persons would not be bap- 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 263 

tized except at the close of their life, and almost in the moment 
of their death, so that they might obtain pardon for their whole 
life ; a preposterous caution, which is frequently censured in the 
writings of the ancient bishops. But we ought to conclude, that 
at whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and purified 
for the whole of life. Whenever we have fallen, therefore, we 
must recur to the remembrance of baptism, and arm our minds 
with the consideration of it, that we may be always certified and 
assured of the remission of our sins. For though, when it has 
been once administered, it appears to be past, yet it is not abo- 
lished by subsequent sins. For the purity of Christ is offered to 
us in it ; and that always retains its virtue, is never overcome 
by any blemishes, but purifies and obliterates all our defile- 
ments.'' 

9. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, says : — 

**To be born of water here means baptism, and in my view it 
is as necessary to our admission into the visible church, as to be 
born of the Spirit is to our admission into the invisible kingdom.'' 
**It is to be observed, that he who understands the authority of 
this institution, and refuses to obey it, will never enter into 
either the visible or the invisible kingdom.'' 

10. Dr. Thomas Scott, author of the Commentary, says : — 

^^^Men and hrethren, what shall we do P — To this the Apostle 
replied, by exhorting them to repent of all their sins, and openly 
to avow their firm belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, hy 
being baptized in his name. In thus professing their faith in him, 
all who truly believed would receive a full remission of their 
sins for his sake, as well as a participation of the sanctifying 
and comforting graces of the Holy Spirit.'' Scott's Commentary 
on Acts ii. 38. 

11. Witsius (on the Economy of the Covenants, London, 1837, 
2 vols. p. 429) says : — 

"Thus far concerning the rites of immersion and emersion. 
Let us now consider the ablution or washing, which is the effect 
of the water applied to the body. In external baptism there is 
' the putting away the filth of the flesh,' 1 Peter iii. 21, which 
represents the ablution or w*ashing away the filth of the soul 
contracted by sin, Acts xxii. 16, * Arise and be baptized, and 
wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.' But the 
filth of sin may be considered either with respect to the guilt, 
which is annexed to the filth or stain, and so it is removed by 
remission, which is a part of justification; or with respect to 
the stain itself, or spiritual deformity and dissimilitude to the 
image of God, and so it is taken away by the grace of the sanc- 
tifying Spirit ; and both are sealed by baptism. Of the former, 
Peter speaks, Acts ii. 38, *Be baptized, every one of you, in the 



264 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins/ Concerning the 
latter, Paul writes, Ephes. v. 25, 26, * Christ loved the church, 
and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it 
with the washing of water by the word/ And they are laid 
before us both together, 1 Cor. vi. 11, * But ye are washed, but 
ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God/ ^' 

So speaks one of the most learned and influential of the great 
continental doctors, in his work on the Economy of the Cove- 
nants. 

12. Kev. James McCord, one of the most popular and learned 
Presbyterian ministers of Kentucky, of the present century, 
said some years ago : — 

"You will not, therefore, deem it an unreasonable statement, 
that there is no ordinary possibility of salvation without the 
precincts of the Christian church, if once we can clearly make 
it out to you that the church is the great mean of efiecting 
man's salvation. 

"This is not one of those questions that are only to be settled 
by long and difficult argument. It is a question of fact ; and 
you will find the decision written, as with a sunbeam, in every 
page of Scripture. When the Saviour gave commandment to 
his Apostles to proclaim his great salvation to all people under 
heaven, what was the declaration that accompanied this com- 
mandment? 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' 
When those Apostles made the first proof of their ministry, in 
the city of Jerusalem, on the memorable day of Pentecost, what 
was their answer to the agonized multitudes who felt convicted 
of the sin of crucifying God's own Messiah, and cried out in 
horror, * Men and brethren, what shall we do V ' Repent and 
be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for 
the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost/ This was their answer to the eager inquiry. When the 
Apostles went abroad among the Gentile nations, what other 
prescription did they ever give for attaining to God's salvation ? 

* Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ/ * believe and be baptized / 

* the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart — 
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 
shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the 
dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made 
unto salvation.' " Last Appeal, p. 165, 166. 

13. And that this is all consistent with certain declarations 
of the Westminster Catechism and Confession of Faith, the fol- 
lowing extracts show : — 



Design of baptism. 265 

'' Q, 165. What is baptism ? 

" A, Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein 
Christ hath ordained the washing with water in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to be a sign and 
seal of ingrafting into himself; of remission of sins by his blood, 
and regeneration by his Spirit ; of adoption, and resurrection 
unto everlasting life; and whereby the parties baptized are 
solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an 
open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the 
Lord's.'' 

The doctrine of the Confession is more fully declared in chap. 
28, sec. 1 ; — to which we invite attention. It is in the words 
following : — 

"Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by 
Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party 
baptized, into the visible church ; but also to be unto him a sign 
and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, 
of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto 
God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life : which 
sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in 
his church until the end of the world." 

14. To the same effect speak other Confessions of Faith, such 
as— 

15. Upiscopalian : The clergy are ordered, before proceeding 
to baptize, to make the following prayer :^ 

"Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy great mercy, 
didst save Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by 
water ; and also didst safely lead the children of Israel, thy peo- 
ple, through the Eed Sea ; figuring thereby thy holy baptism ; 
and by the baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ in the 
river Jordan, didst sanctify the element water, to the mystical 
washing away of sin ; we beseech thee, for thine infinite mer- 
cies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon these thy servants ; wash 
them and sanctify them with the Holy Ghost ; that the]/, being 
delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the Ark of 
Christ's church ; and being steadfast in faith, joyful through 
hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this 
troublesome world, that, finally, thei/ may come to the land of 
everlasting life ; there to reign with thee, world without end, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.^' 

After reading a part of the discourse with Nicodemus, they 
are ordered to make the following exhortation:! 

* Common Prayer, p. 165. f Page 166. 

23 



266 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

"Beloved, ye hear in this gospel the express words of our 
Saviour Christ, that except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Whereby ye 
may perceive the great necessity of this sacrament, where it 
may be had. Likewise, immediately before his ascension into 
heaven, (as we read in the last chapter of St. Mark's Gospel,) 
he gave command to his disciples, saying, Go ye into all the 
world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, 
shall be damned. Which also showeth unto us the great bene- 
fit we reap thereby. For which cause, St. Peter the Apostle, 
when, upon his first preaching of the gospel, many were pricked 
at the heart, and said to him and the rest of the Apostles, Men 
and brethren, what shall we do ? replied and said unto them, 
Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of 
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost : for the 
promise is to you and your children, and to all that are afar off, 
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many 
other words exhorted he them, saying, Save yourselves from this 
untoward generation. For, as the same Apostle testifieth in 
another place, even baptism doth also now save us, (not the 
putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good 
conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
Doubt ye not, therefore, but earnestly believe that he will fa- 
vourably receive these present persons, truly repenting, and 
coming unto him by faith ; that he will grant them remission of 
their sins, and bestow upon them the Holy Ghost ; that he will 
give them the blessing of eternal life, and make them partakers 
of his everlasting kingdom.^' 

16. The Methodist Creed says : — 

"Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and 
born in sin, (and that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but live in sin, 
committing many actual transgressions : ) and that our Saviour 
Christ saith. None shall enter into the kingdom of God, except 
he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy 
Ghost ; I beseech you to call upon God the Father through 
our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his bounteous goodness he will 
grant to these persons that which by nature they cannot have ; 
that they may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, and 
received into Christ's holy church, and be made lively members 
of the same.'' 

Then, it is ordained that the minister say, or repeat, the fol- 
lowing prayer : — 

"Almighty and immortal God, the aid of all that need, the 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 267 

helper of all that flee to thee for succour, the life of them that be- 
lieve, and the resurrection of the dead : We call upon thee for 
these persons^ that they, coming to thy holy baptism, may receive 
remission of their sins, by spiritual regeneration. Eeceive therrij 
O Lord, as thou hast promised by thy well-beloved Son, saying, 
Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it 
shall be opened unto you ; so give unto us that ask ; let us that 
seek find ; open the gate to us that knock ; that these persons 
may enjoy the everlasting benediction of the heavenly washing, 
and may come to the eternal kingdom which thou hast promised 
by Christ our Lord. AmenJ^ Dis. p. 105. 

17. Baptist', Chapter xxx. sec. 1. — "Baptism is an ordinance 
of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, to be unto the 
party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death 
and resurrection ; of his being ingrafted into him ; of remission 
of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to 
live and walk in newness of life.^^ 

The Baptist follows the Presbyterian church as servilely as 
the Methodist church follows the English hierarchy. But she 
avows her faith that immersion is a sign of remission. A sign 
of the past, the present, or the future ! A sign accompanying! 

18. Confession of Bohemia : " We believe that whatsoever, by 
"baptism, is in the outward ceremony signified and witnessed, all 
that doth the Lord God perform inwardly. That is, he washeth 
away sin, begetteth a man again, and bestoweth salvation upon 
him : for the bestowing of these excellent fruits was holy bap- 
tism given and granted to the church.'^ 

19. Confession of Augsburg : " Concerning baptism, they teach 
that it is necessary to salvation, as a ceremony ordained of 
Christ : also, by baptism the grace of God is offered.^' 

20. Confession of Saxony : " I baptize thee — that is, I do wit- 
ness that, by this dipping, thy sins be washed away, and that 
thou art now received of the true God.^^ 

21. Confession of Wittenhurg : "We believe and confess that 
baptism is that sea, into the bottom whereof, as the Prophet 
eaith, God doth east all our sins." 

22. Confession of Helvetia : " To be baptized in the name of 
Christ, is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant 
and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God ; that 
is to say, to be called the sons of God, to be purged also from 
the filthiness of sins, and to be endued with the manifold grace 
of God, for to lead a new and innocent life." 

23. Confession of Sueveland: "As touching baptism, we con- 
fess that it is the font of regeneration, washeth away sins and 
saveth us. But all these things we do understand as Peter doth 
interpret them. 1 Peter iii. 21." 



"268 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

Could any thing be added confirmatory of the creeds, "we 
fihould look to the great ecclesiastic fathers, such as — 

1. Barnabas, in his Catholic Epistle, chap, xi., says: — *'Let 
us now inquire whether the Lord took care to manifest any 
thing beforehand, concerning water and the cross. Now, for the 
former of these, it is written to the people of Israel, how they 
shall not receive that baptism which brings to forgiveness of 
sins ; but shall institute another to themselves that cannot. For 
thus saith the Prophet, * Be astonished, heavens ! and let the 
earth tremble at it ; because this people have done two great 
and wicked things : They have left me, the fountain of living 
waters, and have digged for themselves broken cisterns that can 
hold no water. Is my holy mountain, Zion, a desolate wilder- 
ness ? For he shall be as a young bird when its nest is taken 
away.^ * Consider how he hath joined both ihQ cross and the 
water together.' For this he saith : ' Blessed are they, who, putting 
their trust in the cross, descend into the water ; for they shall have 
their reward in due time : then, saith he, will I give it them.' 
But, as concerning the present time, he saith, * Their leaves shall 
not fail.' Meaning thereby, that every word that shall go out 
of your mouth, shall, through faith and charity, be to the con- 
version and hope of many. In like manner does another Pro- 
phet speak: ^And the land of Jacob was the praise of aU the 
earth;' magnifying thereby the vessels of his Spirit. And 
what follows ? * And there was a river running on the right 
hand, and beautiful trees grew up by it ; and he that shall eat 
of them shall live for ever.' The signification of which is this: 
that we go down into the water, full of sins and pollutions ; huf 
come up again bringing forth fruit ; having in our hearts the fear 
and hope which are in Jesus by the Spirit : * And whosoever shall 
eat of them shall live for ever.' That is, whosoever shall hearkeiji 
to those that call them, and shall believe, shall live for ever." 

2. Hermas deposes as follows, in a work of his, called "The 
Commands of Hermas :" — 

"And I said to him, *I have even now heard from certain 
teachers, that there is no other repentance besides that of bap- 
4ism; when we go down into the water, and receive the forgive-^ 
ness of sins ; and after that we should sin no more, but live 
in purity.' And he said to me — * Thou hast been rightly in- 
formedJ " 

3. Justin Martyr wrote about forty years after John the Apos- 
tle died; and stands most conspicuous among the primitive 
fathers. He addressed an Apology to the Emperor Antoninus 
Pius. In this apology, he narrates the practices of the Chris- 



BESmN OF BAPTISM. 269 

tians, and the reasons of them. Concerning those who are per- 
suaded and believe the things which are taught, and who pro- 
mise to live according to them, he writes : — 

^* Then we bring them to some place where there is water, 
and they are regenerated by the same way of regenefration by 
which we were regenerated: for they are washed in water, (en to 
udati,) in the name of God the Father and Lord of all things, 
and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit: for 
Christ says, * Unless you be regenerated, you cannot enter into 
the kingdom of heaven f and every body knows it is impossible 
for those who are once generated (or born) to enter again into 
their mother's womb.'' 

4. TertuUian, the first who mentions infant baptism, flourished 
about A. D. 216. He writes against the practice : and among 
his most conclusive arguments against infant immersion, (for 
then there was no sprinkling,) he assumes, as a fundamental 
principle not to be questioned, that immersion was for the re- 
mission of sins; and this being universally conceded, he argues 
as follows :— 

** Our Lord says, indeed, * Do not forbid them to come to me ;' 
therefore, let them come when they are grown up — let them, 
come when they understand — ^when they are instructed whither 
it is that they come. Let them be made Christians when they 
can know Christ, What need their guiltless age make such 
haste io the forgiveness of sinsf Men will proceed more warily 
in worldly goods ; and he that should not have earthly goods 
committed to him, yet shall have heavenly ! Let them know 
how to desire this salvation, that you may appear to have given 
to one that asketh." P. 74, 

5. Origen, though so great a visionary, is, nevertheless, a 
competent witness in any question of fact. And here I would 
again remind the reader, that it is as witnesses in a question of 
fact, and not of opinion, we summon these ancients. It is not 
to tell their own opinions or the reasons of them ; but to depose 
what were the views of Christians on this institution in their 
times. There was no controversy on this subject for more than 
four hundred years ; and, therefore, we only expect to find inci- 
dental allusions to it ; but these are numerous, and of the most 
unquestionable character. Origen, in his homily upon Luke, 
says : — 

"Infants are baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. Of 
what sins? Or, when have they sinned? Or, how can any rea-. 

23* 



270 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

son of the law, in their case, hold good, but according to that 
sense that we mentioned even now? (that is) none is free from 
pollution, though his life be but the length of one day upon the 
earth/' 

And in another place he says, that — 

" The baptism of the church is given for the remission of 
sins/' 

And again — 

*^If there were nothing in infants that wanted forgiveness and 
mercy, the grace of baptism would be needless to them/' 

In another place, he says — 

*'But in the regeneration^ (or new birth,) by the laver, (or bap- 
tism,) every one that is iDorn again of water and the Spirit, 
is clear from pollution : clear (as I may venture to say) as by a 
glass darkly/' 

6. And as for Chrysosiom, he expressly says: — 

"In baptism, or the spiritual circumcision, there is no trouble 
to be undergone, but to throw off the load of sins, and receive 
pardon for all foregoing offences/' 

And again^ — 

*' There is no receiving or having the bequeathed inheritance 
before one is baptized ; and none can be called a son until he is 
baptized/' 

7. Cyprian : "While," says he, " I lay in darkness and uncer- 
tainty, I thought on what I had heard of a second birth, pro- 
posed by the divine goodness, but could not comprehend how a 
man could receive a new life from his being immersed in water, 
cease to be what he was before, and still remain the same body. 
How, said I, can such a change be possible ? How can he, who 
is grown old in a worldly way of living, strip himself of his for- 
mer inclinations and inveterate habits ? Can he, who has spent 
his whole time in plenty, and indulged his appetite without re- 
straint, ever be transformed into an example of frugality and 
sobriety ? Or he who has always appeared in splendid apparel, 
stoop to the plain, simple, and unadorned dress of the common 
people ? It is impossible for a man, who has borne the most 
honourable posts, ever to submit to lead a private and obscure 
life : or, that he who was never seen in public without a crowd 
of attendants and persons who endeavoured to make their for- 
tunes by attending him, should ever bear to be alone. This," 
continues he, "was my way of arguing: I thought it was im- 
possible for me to leave my former course of life, and the habits 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 271 

I was then engaged in and accustomed to ; but no sooner did 
the life-giving water wash the spots off my soul, than my heart 
received the heavenly light of the Holy Spirit, which trans- 
formed me into a new creature ; all my difficulties were cleared, 
my doubts dissolved, and my darkness dispelled. I was then 
able to do what before seemed impossible : could discern that 
my former life was earthly and sinful, according to the impurity 
of my birth ; but that my spiritual birth gave me new ideas and 
inclinations, and directed all my views to God.'' 

Cyprian flourished a. d. 250. 

On what occasion or on what question could we, with more 
propriety or with more confidence than on the present, ask — - 
*^W7iat need have we of farther testimony f We have heard the 
Harbinger of the Messiah and the Messiah himself; we have 
heard his holy Apostles and Evangelists ; we have heard the 
primitive Apostolic church, the most venerable and reputable 
ecclesiastic fathers; we have heard the Hebrew church, the 
Greek church, the Roman church, and all Dissenting churches 
confess "one baptism for the remission of sins.'' We have 
not only heard the renowned founders, reformers, and acknow- 
ledged oracles of all Protestant parties, but also have read in 
their own words, in the symbols, creeds, and formulas of their 
communion and intercommunion, their expositions and defences 
of Christian baptism as a sign and a seal of remission of all past 
sins — and again of confession and petition as the means of par- 
don for all sins committed after baptism. There is not only a 
general, but, I might say, a universal admission of the theory, 
with comparatively few dissentients, as respects the practice 
and explicit dispensation of the ordinance for this purpose. 

Some, nay many, have taught and exhibited baptism alone as 
an effectual mean of salvation and pardon. Hence originated 
infant baptism ; and hence, too, originated a denial of baptism 
for remission of sins. This is the history of the whole contro- 
versy in one sentence. The Greek and Roman churches, during 
their apostasy, taught baptism alone, or vnthout faith, for re- 
mission of sins. Some of the reformed churches, while they 
practised the papal rite of sprinkling babes, repudiated its con- 
nection with the remission of sins ; but were never able to give 
a good reason for this practice that did not imply such a belief. 

Baptists, too, borrowing every thing from their Pedobaptist 
brethren but the subject and action of baptism, have reduced it 



272 DESIGN OF BAPTISM. 

to a mere form of making the Christian profession — a door into 
their church. But when in, they harmonize in every thing with 
those without the pale of their communion, orthodox in their 
opinions of the true theory of Christian doctrine. So that, 
among all these parties, there is no true and scriptural dispen- 
sation of Christian baptism. 

Baptism, according to the Apostolic church, is both "a sign^^ 
and "a seaV of remission of all former sins. In this sense 
only does ^^ baptism now save us.'' Not in putting away the 
filth of the flesh, but in obtaining a good conscience through 
faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This 
faith in our hearts is expressed in the sign of baptism, our 
burial and resurrection with him, indicated by an immersion in 
water and an emersion out of it. 

Circumcision is said to have been, in one case at least, a sign 
and a seal. Baptism, in the same sense, and in a similar case,- 
is also both a sign and a seal — the sign, however, at most, is 
only indicative of what has been sealed. Such, indeed, are all 
sensible signs. The sense, we may say, is in the sign, and the 
confirmations in the seal. This circumcision, or cutting round, 
and cutting ofi", was a sign of the insulation or separation of 
Abraham and his seed from every other nation and people. 
But to Abraham himself, previously possessed of faith in the 
promised Messiah, it was also a seal, or confirmation of that 
faith and its rightfulness which he had experienced and ex- 
pressed before he was circumcised. But such it was not to 
either Ishmael or Isaac. To them it was a sign of their sepa- 
ration from other tribes, and a people, and a confirmation that 
they were of the seed of Abraham and heirs of Canaan, accord- 
ing to a divine charter. 

Baptism, though not an antetype of a type, a sign of a sign, 
or a seal of a seal, as some system-makers would make it when 
representing it as coming in the room and standing in the stead 
of circumcision, is, indeed, analogous to circumcision, as the 
Sabbath to the Lord^s day, or as the Passover to the Lord^s 
supper, especially in this : — that in one point it is a sig7i of the 
burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and of our burial and 
resurrection in and with him ; and, in another point of view, a 
seal of the righteousness of faith, or the remission of all our 
past sins, through faith in his blood, then, and in that act, pub- 
licly expressed and confirmed. This, most unquestionably, is 



DESIGN OP BAPTISM. 273 

its place, its meaning, and importance in the Christian institu- 
tion. This, and no other view of it, now entertained by profess- 
ing Christians, fully expounds and exhausts all that is said of 
it in the Apostolic Scriptures, in the abstracts of Christian doc- 
trine and formulas of the primitive and ancient church, as well 
as in the sayings and expositions of our most gifted, learned, 
and Christian expositors of the Christian doctrine, a few sam- 
ples of which, and but a few of those in our possession, have 
now been presented to the reader. Yet these are, we presume 
to say, enough to reconcile us to such sayings as these : — " He 
that believes and is baptized shall be saved.^' *' Eepent and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for 
the remission of sins." ** Arise and be baptized, and wash away 
your sins." **The like figure corresponding thereunto, baptism 
doth save us," &c. &c. Not, indeed, that there is anything in the 
mere element of water, or in the form of placing the subject in 
it, or in the person that administers it, or in the formula used 
upon the occasion, though both good taste and piety have some- 
thing to do in these particulars, but all its virtue and efficacy is 
in the faith and intelligence of him that receives it. 

To him that believeth and repenteth of his sins, and to none 
else, then, we may safely say, " be baptized for the remission of 
your sins," and it will surely be granted by the Lord, and en-- 
joyed by the subject with an assurance and an evidence which 
the word and ordinances of the Lord alone can bestow. 



' BOOK FIFTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

ADOPTION. 

Antecedent and consequent are relative terms. A conse- 
quent is that which follows from, or is dependent upon, an ante- 
cedent ; — the result of an instituted connection between it and 
that which precedes it, in nature or by appointment. 

There is a conventional and artificial, as well as a natural and 
necessary, connection between antecedents and consequents. 
Consequents in grammar, logic, mathematics, religion, though 
always dependent in some way upon their respective antece- 
dents, are not in the same sense, nor always, when in the same 
sense, in the same degree dependent upon their antecedents. 

In nature, the succession of day and night, of summer and 
winter, of seed-time and harvest are essentially natural conse- 
quents, because the effects of the motions of the earth. While 
the earth remains, they must continue. But the motions of a 
wheel, by the weight and motion of water upon it, are conse- 
quents both of nature and of art combined. 

In things mental and spiritual, the connection between moral 
and spiritual antecedents and consequents is not to be measured 
by time, or the motions of bodies. A perception, a thought, a 
volition, and an action may be so simultaneous as to baffle all 
the measures of time. Still they are, in nature or by divine 
appointment, antecedent and consequent, though they may not 
stand to each other as cause and effect. But who can satisfac- 
torily trace the connection between antecedents and consequents 
in the operations of nature in many of her most beautiful and 
beneficent developments? Take, for example, some of her sub- 
lime processes in crystallization. Who can explain her operations 
in converting certain fluids into various solid bodies of the most 

274 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 275 

beautiful and grotesque forms and of the most variegated co- 
lours. Who can explain the phenomena of their polarity, which 
causes one particle of matter to attract an atom of another par- 
ticle and to repel the other parts of it, so as to form numerous 
sides bounded by plane surfaces? "Who can enumerate and 
arrange the antecedents and consequents acting and reacting in 
converting the contents of an egg into a well-formed and well- 
fledged peacock ? 

The mysteries of a spiritual process on the inner man are not 
more incomprehensible than the mysteries of that incubation 
which forms bones, muscles, arteries, veins, skin, feathers, and 
hairs out of the yolk of an egg. Still, it is in the way of ante- 
cedents and consequents, in action and in reaction. 

In making a son of God out of a son of man, as he now is, 
the process may be more sublime and spiritual, but not more 
mysterious and incomprehensible. There is the spirit of man, 
paralyzed and dead in trespasses and sins, energized, quickened, 
and transformed by the power of Divine truth, perceived, re- 
ceived, and obeyed. Here are antecedents and consequents not 
governed by the laws of matter. Hence faith, repentance, and 
baptism are severally essential to the exhibition, development, 
and perfection of the Christian man. Faith and truth, repent- 
ance and death unto sin, baptism or a burial and resurrection 
with Christ, are as much antecedents and consequents respect- 
ing one another as are oxygen, caloric, and light to animal life 
and comfort. 

But we do not separate these, in nature nor in operation, from 
one another: no more can we separate faith, repentance, and 
baptism, in regeneration or conversion, according to the spi- 
ritual agencies concurrent in forming a new man out of an old 
man. We are, indeed, enlightened, converted ; or, rather, we 
are enlightened, quickened, regenerated, justified, adopted, sanc- 
tified, and saved by the truth believed and obeyed. Faith and 
obedience are in embryo, twin sisters in the heart of a convert; 
and are developed, manifested, and perfected by the overt acts 
of confession and profession, or by faith and baptism. 

When, then, we say that justification, sanctification, and adop- 
tion are consequent upon faith, repentance, and baptism, we 
mean not to place repentance and baptism on a level with faith, 
or as worth any thing without it. Nay, indeed, we rather re- 
gard baptism as deriving all its value from faith, and as being 



276 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

an embodied and formal profession of it. "For, as faith, with- 
out works, is dead, being alone,'^ so baptism, without faith, 
is a mere useless ceremony, and in no respect benefits, rather, 
indeed, injures its subject. Even faith itself is of no value 
separated from the blood of Christ. Our life spiritual is found 
in the moral of his blood. For, as nothing which we eat can 
enter, but by its death and dissolution, into our blood and life, 
so nothing that Christ did, apart from what he suffered, can 
ever enter into our spiritual life, health, and moral consti- 
tution. 

Baptism being the last of the series of truth, faith, repent- 
ance, love, and profession, it is properly styled, in figure, "being 
born again,'' or being "born of water and of the Spirit.'' And 
faith being an active, operative principle, containing in it all 
that is in the gospel of Christ's blood, it is the vitalizing prin- 
ciple of Christian activity and of all Christian excellence and 
enjoyment. 

Adoption is usually placed after justification, in our systems 
of scholastic theology. We are not in possession of any good 
reason for this peculiar arrangement. "Because you are sons," 
says Paul, "God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your 
hearts, breathing Abba, Father." 

Adoption, indeed, is a mere act of Divine favour, much more 
glorious on the part of God, than the adoption of a squalid 
wretch on the part of a king, to be an heir in common with his 
own son. In our baptism, we are born into the Divine family, 
enrolled in heaven. We receive justification or pardon, we are 
separated or sanctified to God, and glorified by the inspiration 
of his own Spirit. 

- While justification and sanctification, especially the latter, 
occupy a very large space in Apostolic Christianity, adoption 
is but occasionally named or alluded to. It is wholly and 
exclusively a work of Divine grace. But justification and 
sanctification — although the former is really no more than par- 
don, and the latter no more than separation to God, to his ser- 
vice, to his and our glory — cover a large space in the remedial 
economy. 

We shall, therefore, develop more at length justification and 
sanctification; the former of which changes our state, and 
the latter not only our state, but our character. We shall, 
however, in doing this, present them as the consequents of 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 277 

Christian baptism, as Paul does, when he says, ''But you are 
washed,^' in baptism, " but you are justified, but you are sanc- 
tified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our 
God/' 



CHAPTER 11. 

JUSTIFICATION. 



"If any man be in Christ,'^ says Paul, "he is a new creation; 
old things have passed away; all things have become new.'^ 
By the special favour of God, Jesus Christ " is made unto us 
wisdom, justification, sanctification, and redemption/' Hence, 
as saith the Prophet, "In him shall all the seed of Israel be 
justified, and in him shall they glory/' "He that boasteth/^ 
therefore, " let him boast in the Lord/' 

What, then, is justification, the first fruit of this heavenly 
cluster of Divine graces ? It is, indeed, a trite but a true say- 
ing, that the term justification is a forensic word ; and, there- 
fore, indicates that its subject has been accused of crime, or of 
the transgression of law. It also implies that the subject of it 
has not only been accused and tried, but also acquitted. Such, 
then, is legal or forensic justification. It is, indeed, a sen- 
tence of acquittal announced by a tribunal, importing that the 
accused is found not guilty. If convicted, he cannot be justi- 
fied ; if justified, he has not been convicted. 

But, such is not justification by grace. Evangelical justifica- 
tion is the justification of one that has been convicted as guilty 
before God, the Supreme and Ultimate Judge of the Universe. 
But the whole world has been tried and found guilty before 
God. So that, in fact, "there is none righteous; no, not one/' 
Therefore, by deeds of law, no man can be justified before God. 
"For should a man keep the whole law, and yet ofiend in one 
point, he is guilty of all." He has despised the whole authority 
of the law and the Lawgiver. It is, then, utterly impossible 
that any sinner can be forensically or legally justified before 
God, by a law which he has in any one instance violated. 

If, then, a sinner be justified, it must be on some other prin- 
ciple than law. He must be justified by favour and not by 
right. Still it must be rightfully done by him that justifies a 

24 



278 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

transgression, else he will be liable to the charge of injustice to 
the law and the government. This is the emergency which 
must be met by evangelical justification. The mission and me- 
diation of the Messiah were primarily to meet this emergency ; 
though, indeed, he has done much more than to meet it. Evan- 
gelical justification is, therefore, a justification by favour as 
respects man ; and it has been made just also on the part of 
God, by the sacrifice or obedience unto death of his Son. Still 
it must be regarded as not a real or legal justification. It is, as 
respects man, only pardon, or forgiveness of the past ; but the 
pardoned sinner being ever after treated and regarded as 
though he were righteous, he is constituted and treated as ^ 
righteous before God. He is as cordially received into the fa- - 
vour and friendship of God, as though he had never at any time 
ofiended against his law. This, then, is what is peculiarly and . 
appropriately called "evangelical justification.^' Still, legally 
contemplated, God, in fact, ^^ justifies the ungodly J ^ And so 
teaches the Apostle *Paul. 

But every one of reflection will inquire. How can the justifi- 
cation of the ungodly be regarded as compatible with the jus- 
tice, the purity, the truthfulness of God ? How can he stand 
justified before the pure, and holy, and righteous peers of his 
celestial realm — the hierarchs and princes of heaven ? This is, 
indeed, to very many, a profound mystery. And "great,'' truly, 
"is the mystery of godliness." Standing at this point, and 
viewing it in all its bearings, heaven is always in rapture while 
contemplating this new, and grand, and glorious revelation of 
the manifold wisdom of God. It is, however, a revealed mys- 
tery. One there is, and was, and evermore will be, who, by his 
obedience to that violated law, even unto death, has so magnified 
and made honourable that law and government, as to open a 
channel through which truth, righteousness, and mercy can har- 
moniously flow together and justify God while justifying the 
sinner, by pardoning him, and then treating him as though he 
never had sinned against his throne and government. 

His death was, therefore, contemplated as the one only true, 
real, and adequate sin-ofiering ever presented in this universe, 
in the presence of God, angels, men, and demons, that does for 
ever justify God in justifying man. It will for ever silence all 
demur, and fill the universe, heaven and eternity, with the 
praise of the Lord. Hence, in perfect harmony with all the 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 279 

types of the law, the oracles of the Prophets, and the promises 
and covenants of God, he is truly, rightfully, and with the em- 
phatic seal of God, surnamed "Jehovah our Eighteousness/' 
Therefore, as saith Isaiah, *'By the knowledge of him shall my 
righteous servant justify many whose iniquities he shall have 
borne/' 

How, then, is it dispensed ? or, rather, how is it received and 
enjoyed? "It is through faith,'' says Paul, "that it might be 
by grace," to the end that the promise of eternal life " might 
be sure to all the seed ;" whether, by nature, Jews or Gentiles. 
It is through faith, and not on account of faith, as though there 
was in faith some intrinsic merit. 

It is worthy of remark, that if faith were a work of the head 
or of the heart, or of both, possessing inherent and essential 
merit, it would be as much a work to be rewarded as any other 
exercise of the understanding or of the heart. Love is said 
"to be the fulfilling of the whole law," and covetousness is 
called idolatry. Were, then, justification to be founded on faith, 
hope, or love, as works of the understanding or afiections, it 
could be no more of grace than any other blessing received on 
account of any thing done by us or wrought in us. 

Hence, in the evangelical dispensation of justification, it is in 
some sense connected with seven causes. Paul affirms, that a 
man is justified by faith: Rom. v. 1 ; Gal. ii. 16 ; iii. 24. In 
the second place, he states, that, "we are justified freely by his 
grace :" Rom. iii. 24 ; Titus iii. 7. In the third place, on an- 
other occasion, he teaches that " we are justified by Christ's 
blood:" Rom. v. 9. Again, in the fourth place, he says, that 
"we are justified by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our God :" 1 Cor. vi. 11. To the Galatians, in the 
fifth place, he declares, that "we are justified by Christ:" Gal. 
ii. 16. In the sixth place, Isaiah says, "we are justified by 
knowledge:" Isa. liii. 11. And James, in the seventh place, 
says, "we are justified by works:" chap. ii. 21. Thus, by Divine 
authority, faith is connected as an efiect, in some sense, of seven 
causes, viz. Faith, Grace, the Blood of Christ, the Name of the 
Lord, Knowledge, Christ, and Works. May it not, then, be 
asked. Why do so many select one of these only, as essential to 
justification ? This is one of the evidences of the violence of 
sectarianism. 

Call these causes or means of justification, and they may seve- 



280 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

rally indicate an influence or an instrumentality in the consum- 
mation of this great act of Divine favour. He that assumes 
any one or two of them, as the exclusive or one only essential 
cause of a sinner^s justification, acts arbitrarily and hazard- 
ously, rather than discreetly or according to the oracles of God. 
We choose rather to give to them severally a Divine significance, 
and, consequently, a proper place in the consummation of evan- 
gelical justification. We feel obliged to use the same reason 
and discretion in ascertaining the developments of this vrork of 
Divine grace, that we may employ in searching into the works 
of God in nature and in moral government. How many agents 
^ and laws of nature co-operate in providing our daily bread ? 
Suns rise and set, moons wax and wane, tides ebb and flow, the 
planets observe their cycles, morning, noon, and night perform 
their functions, the clouds pour their treasures into the bosom 
of the thirsty earth, the dews distil their freshness on the ten- 
der blade, and the electric fluid, unobserved, in perpetual mo- 
tion, as the anima mundi ministers to life in every form of vege- 
table, animal, and human existence. 

Why, then, to reason's ear should it sound discordant, or, to 
reason's eye appear uncouth, that, in the scheme of redemption 
and regeneration, God's instrumentalities should be as numerous 
and as various, yet as co-operative as those in outward and sen- j 
Bible nature ? 

Again, let us survey the works of man to man, his modes and ' 
forms of action in the consummation of some grand scheme of 
human benefaction. Take, for example, that philanthropist who, j 
standing on the sea-shore, descries a shipwrecked crew clinging 
to a portion of the wreck, tossed to and fro among the foaming 
billows of an angry sea. He calls to his son, and commands 
him to seize a boat and hasten to their rescue. He obeys. 
Cheerfully he plies the oars, and fearlessly struggles through 
many a conflicting wave, till he reaches the almost famished 
and fainting crew. He commands them to seize his arm and let 
go the wreck, and he will help them into his boat. They obey, 
and, all aboard, he commands them to grasp each his oar and 
co-operate with him in seeking the port of safety. They cheer- 
fully co-operate, and are saved. 

The spectators and the narrators of this scene form and ex- 
press very difierent views of it. One says, the perishing crew 
were saved by a man on the shore ; another, by his son ; an- 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 281 

other, by a boat ; another, by getting into a boat ; another, by 
rowing themselves to shore ; another, by a favourable breeze. 

They all told the truth. There is no contradiction in their 
representations. But a philosopher says, they were saved by 
all these means together. Such is the case before us. 

These means may be regarded as causes co-operating in the 
result, all necessary, not one of them superfluous. But some 
one of them, to one person ; another, to a second person ; an- 
other, to a third person ; and another, to a fourth, appears more 
prominent than the others : consequently, in narrating the deli- 
verance, he ascribes it mainly to that cause which, at the time, 
made the most enduring impression on his own mind. 

But the calm, contemplative thinker thus arranges these con- 
current causes. The original or moving cause was the humanity 
and kindness of the father that stood on the shore and saw them 
about to perish. His son, who took the boat and imperiled his 
life, was the efficient or meritorious cause. The boat itself was 
the instrumental cause. The knowledge of their own condition 
and the kind invitation tendered to the sufferers was the dispos- 
ing cause. Their consenting to the condition was the formal 
cause. Their seizing the boat with their hands and springing 
into it was the immediate cause. And their co-operative rowing 
to the shore was the concurrent and effectual cause of their sal- 
vation. 

Had any one of the Apostles been accosted by captious, inqui- 
sitive, and speculative partisans for a reconciliation of all he * 
had said, or that his fellow-labourers had said in their narra- 
tives, or allusions to particular persons, scenes, or events hap- 
pening in his presence, or under his administration of affairs ; 
had he been requested to explain and reconcile them with what 
he, or others of equal authority, had on other occasions said or 
written concerning them, doubtless, in some such way he could 
and would have explained them. Indeed, in the common expe- 
rience of all courts of inquiry, and tribunals of justice, where 
numerous statements are made on questions of facts, by a single 
witness, and, still more, when a plurality are examined, such di- 
versified representations are made rather to the confirmation than 
to the detriment or disparagement of the import or the credi- 
bility of these statements. How often, and by how many ca- 
villers have the Four Gospels been subjected to such ordeals, on 
Buch pretences ? But who has yet found good reasons to dis- 

24* 



282 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

parage or discredit these narratives on account of such assaults 
or misunderstandings ? 

No question agitated since the era of Protestantism has occu- 
pied so much attention, or concentrated a greater amount of 
learning and research than the question of justification by 
faith; not, indeed, because of the inherent difficulties of the sub- 
ject, but because of the defection and apostasy of the papal 
hierarchy, and the thick pall of darkness and error with which 
it had enveloped the whole Bible. One extreme generates an- 
other. Hence the terminology of the most orthodox schools on 
this subject is neither so scriptural nor so intelligible as the 
great importance of the subject demands. 

To harmonize the seven statements found in the Bible on this 
subject, we know no method more rational or more scriptural 
than that indicated in the illustration given. We are pardoned 
and treated as righteous, or, in other words, we are justified by 
the grace of God the Father, as the original and moving cause ; 
by Christ his Son, and by his blood or sacrifice, as the merito- 
rious cause ; by faith and knowledge, as instrumental causes ; by 
our convictions of sin and penitence, as the disposing cause ; 
and by works, as the concurrent or concomitant cause. This, 
however, is justifying God in justifying us. ** You see,'' said 
the Apostle James, " how faith wrought by works,'' in the case 
of Abraham, when he ofi*ered up his son upon the altar ; " and 
by works his faith was made perfect." Indeed, true faith neces- 
sarily works ; therefore, a working faith is the only true, real, 
and proper faith in Divine or human esteem. 

Faith without works is no more faith than a corpse is a man. 
It is, therefore, aptly, by high authority, regarded as ^^ dead J' 
Faith alone, or faith without works, profits nothing. But, as 
Romanists taught works without faith, Protestants have some- 
times taught faith without works. The latter quote Paul, and 
the former quote James, as plenary authority. But the two 
Apostles have fallen into bad hands. Paul never preached faith 
without works, nor James works without faith. Between these 
parties, the Apostles have been much abused. 

Controversies generate new terms or affix new ideas to words. 
The question between Calvin and Arminius — or between their 
followers, is not the identical question between Paul and the 
Jews, or James and nominal Christians. 

The works of the law, and the works of faith are as different 



I 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 283 

as law and gospel. Works, indeed, are to be considered as the 
imbodiments of views, thoughts, emotions, volitions, and feel- 
ings. They are appreciable indications of the states of the 
mind ; sensible exponents of the condition of the inner man. 
For example, he that seeks justification by the works of the law 
is not in a state of mind to be justified by the blood of Christ, 
or by the grace of God ; he is ignorant of himself, ignorant of 
God ; consequently, too proud of his powers to condescend to 
be pardoned or justified by the mere mercy and merits of an- 
other. Rich, and independent in his views of himself, he cannot 
think of being a debtor to the worth and compassion of one 
who contemplates him as ruined and undone for ever. He is 
too proud to be vain, or too vain to be proud of himself. In 
either view, he cannot submit to the righteousness of faith. For 
this purpose, Paul says of the Pharasaic Jews, "They, being 
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish 
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the 
righteousness of God,'' or to that righteousness which God has 
provided for the ungodly. 

On the other hand, the works of him that is justified by faith 
are exponents of an essentially different state of mind. He is 
humble, dependent, grateful. Feeling himself undone, ruined, 
a debtor without hope to pay, he sues for mercy, and mercy is 
obtained, he is grateful, thankful, and humble before God. In 
this view of the matter, to justify a man for any work of which 
he is capable, would be to confirm him in carnality, selfishness, 
and pride. But, convinced, humbled, emptied of himself, and 
learning, through faith in the gospel, that God has provided a 
ransom for the ruined, the wretched, and the undone, he gladly 
accepts pardon through sovereign mercy, and humbles himself 
to a state of absolute dependence on the merits and mercy of 
another. Justification by faith in Christ is, then, the imbodi- 
ment of views in perfect harmony with truth, with our condi- 
tion, with the whole revealed character of God, and, necessarily, 
tends to humility, gratitude, piety, and humanity ; while justifi- 
cation sought by works as naturally tends to pride, ingratitude, 
impiety, and inhumanity. 

Such being the true philosophy of justification by faith, and 
of justification sought and supposed to be obtained by works of 
law, we need not marvel that the God of all grace, after having 
jsent his Son into our world to become a sacrifice for us — to die 



284 'CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

for our sins, and to rise again for our justification — should have 
instituted faith in him, in his death, burial, and resurrection, 
as the means of a perfect reconciliation to himself, commanding 
us not only to cherish this faith in our hearts, but exhibit it by 
a visible death to sin ; a burial with Christ to sin, and a rising 
again to walk in a new life, expressed and symbolized by an im- 
mersion in water into the name of the Father, of the Son, and 
of the Holy Spirit, not as a work of righteousness, but as a 
mere confession of our faith in what he did for us, and of our 
fixed purpose to walk in him. Hence, it is the only suitable 
institution to such an indication, as being, not a moral work of 
righteousness, but a mere passive surrendering of ourselves to 
die, to be buried, and to be raised again by the merit and aid 
of another. 

Baptism is, therefore, no work of law, no moral duty, no moral 
righteousness, but a simple putting on of Christ and placing our- 
selves wholly in his hand, and under his guidance. It is an 
open, sensible, voluntary expression of our faith in Christ, a 
visible imbodiment of faith, to which, as being thus perfected, 
the promise of remission of sins is divinely annexed. In one 
word, it is faith perfected. Hence, when Paul exegetically deve- j 
lops its blessings, he says, "But you are washed, but you are! 
sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,} 
and by the Spirit of our Lord.^'^ Thus, justification, sanctifica- 
tion, and adoption — the three most precious gifts of the gospel — I 
are evangelically connected with faith in the Lord Jesus and j 
baptism into his death. 

The immediate baptism of the first converts, after faith, iaj 
satisfactorily explained in this view of it: three thousand in one! 
day believed and were baptized. The jailer and his family! 
were enlightened, believed, and were baptized the same hour! 
of the night. Paul himself, so soon as he had recovered fromj 
the influence of the supernatural brightness which deprived I 
him of sight, and before he had eaten or drunk any thing, was I 
commanded, without delay, to be forthwith baptized. " And] 
he arose and was baptized.'^ Baptism, with them, was the per- 
fecting, or confession, of their faith. The Ethiopian eunuch,! 
on his journey in the desert, is as striking an example of this! 
as are the cases named. It was " putting on Christ'^ as their j 
righteousness. 

* Cor. yi. 11. 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 285 

Baptism, without faith, is of no value whatever ; for, in truth, 
baptism is but the actual and symbolic profession of faith. It 
is its legitimate imbodiment and consummation. And whatever 
virtue there is in it, or connected with it, is but the virtue of 
faith in the blood of Christ applied to the conscience and to the 
heart. The burial in water is a burial with Christ and in 
Christ. " For in him shall all the seed of Israel,^' the believing 
children of Abraham, "be justified,^^ and in him, "and not in 
themselves, shall they glory/' It is, then, the sensible and ex- 
perimental deliverance from both the guilt and the pollution of 
sin; and for this reason, or in this view of it, believing penitents, 
when inquiring what they should do, were uniformly commanded 
by the ambassadors of Christ to be " baptized for the remission 
of sins,'' as God's own way, under the New Institution, of re- 
ceiving sinners into favour, through the death, burial, and 
resurrection of his Son, into whose name especially, as well as 
by whose mediatorial authority, they were commanded to be, 
on confession, buried in baptism. 

Salvation, in the aggregate, is all of grace ; and all the parts 
of it are, consequently, gracious. Nor do we, in truth, in obey- 
ing the gospel, or in being buried in baptism, make void either 
law or gospel, but establish and confirm both. 



CHAPTER III. 

SANCTIFICATION. 



Preface. — In a specific, evangelical sense, sanctification is 
the act of separating a person or thing from a common to a 
special and spiritual use. In the following chapter on Sanctifi- 
cation, we have dilated, in a discursive way, on the whole sub- 
ject of spiritual influence, in illumination and conversion, as 
terminating in sanctification. These, indeed, are concurrent 
means of self-consecration and of Divine sanctification or sepa- 
ration to God. But, in strict reference to our specific object, 
here, we have only to state, that the Christian is contemplated, 
not merely as adopted into the family of God, not merely as 
pardoned or justified, but, as also sanctified or consecrated to 



•286 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

God, both in state and character. Of this separation or sancti- 
fication to God, the Holy Spirit, — which, in the Christian, is the 
Holy Guest, commonly called the Holy Ghost, — is the personal 
agent and author, his word the instrument, and the blood of 
Christ, apprehended and received by faith, the real, cleansing, 
purifying means. 

Holiness is literally separation from the earth to God and 
heaven. Faith, therefore, in the unseen, the spiritual, and the 
heavenly, is as necessary to sanctification as to justification, 
pardon, or adoption. We are justified by faith, sanctified by 
faith, whatever the instrument or means may be ; whether the 
word of God, the blood of Christ, or the ordinance of baptism. 
The reason of this is, that without faith every man is spiritually 
blind, and dead to the things of God, of Christ, and heaven. 
Well has Paul defined it to be the evidence or conviction of 
things not seen, and, consequently, the confidence of things 
hoped for. But faith, as James teaches, is perfected only by 
obedience. In reference to this and to our baptism, we are said 
to be washed or purified by the bath of regeneration, sometimes 
called "the washing of the new birth,'' and by the "renewal of 
the Holy Spirit.'' ' 

In the following essay, we have argued the whole subject of 
spiritual influence, as understood and taught by us, and as ter- 
minating in our sanctification and holiness, which, indeed, is 
the glorious consummation of the whole Christian dispensation. 
"For, without holiness, no man shall see," or enjoy, "God." 
"Happy the pure in heart," said the great Teacher, "for they 
shall see God," "in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and 
at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore." 



On the subject of spiritual influence, there are two extremes 
of doctrine. There is the Word alone system, and there is the 
Spirit alone system. I believe in neither. The former is the 
parent of a cold, lifeless rationalism and formality. The latter 
is, in some temperaments, the cause of a wild, irrepressible en- 
thusiasm ; and, in other cases, of a dark, melancholy despond- 
ency. With some, there is a sort of compound system, claiming 
both the Spirit and the Word — representing the naked Spirit 
of God operating upon the naked soul of a man, without any 
argument or motive interposed, in some mysterious and inexpli- 



I 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 287 

cable way — incubating the soul, quickening, or making it spiri- 
tually alive, by a direct and immediate contact, without the in- 
tervention of one moral idea or impression. But, after this 
creating act, there is the bringing to bear upon it the gospel 
revelation, called conversion. Hence, in this school, regene- 
ration is the cause ; and conversion, at some future time, the 
result of that abstract operation. 

There. yet remains another school, which never speculatively 
separates the Word and the Spirit ; which, in every case of con- 
version, contemplates them as co-operating; or, which is the 
same thing, conceives of the Spirit of God as clothed with the 
gospel motives and arguments — enlightening, convincing, per- 
suading sinners, and thus enabling them to flee from the wrath 
to come. In tliis school, conversion and regeneration are terms 
indicative of a moral or spiritual change — of a change accom- 
plished through the arguments; — the light, the love, the grace 
of God expressed and revealed, as well as approved by the su- 
pernatural attestations of the Holy Spirit. They believe, and 
teach, that it is the Spirit that quickens, and that the Word of 
God — the Living Word — is that incorruptible seed which, when 
planted in the heart, vegetates, and germinates, and grows, and 
fructifies into eternal life. They hold it to be unscriptural, 
irrational, unphilosophic to discriminate between spiritual 
agency and instrumentality — between what the Word, per se, 
and the Spirit, per se, severally does, as though they were two 
independent and wholly distinct powers or influences. They 
object not to the co-operation of secondary causes ; of various 
subordinate instrumentalities ; the ministry of men ; the minis- 
try of angels ; the doctrine of special providences ; but, how- 
ever, whenever the Word gets into the heart — the spiritual seed 
into the moral nature of man, it as naturally, as spontaneously 
grows there as the sound, good corn when deposited in the 
genial earth. It has life in it ; and is, therefore, sublimely and 
divinely called **The Living and Effectual Word.'' 

I prefer the comparisons of the Great Teacher. They are 
the most appropriate. We frequently err when handling these, 
because, in our quest of forbidden knowledge, we are disposed 
to carry them farther than he himself did. In the opening pa- 
rable of the Gospel Age — a parable placed first in the synopsis 
of parables by Matthew, Mark, and Luke — he thus compares 
the Word of God to seed ; and, with reference to this figure, he 



288 CONSEQUENTS OE BAPTISM. 

compares the human heart to soil, distributed into six varieties: 
the trodden pathway, the rocky field, the thorny clifi", the rich 
alluvion, the better, and the best of that. But we are not con- 
tent with that beautiful and instructive representation of the 
philosophy of conversion. We must transcend these limits. 
We must explain the theory of soils. We must even become 
spiritual geologists, and explore all the strata of mother earth ; 
and, even then, there yet remains an infinite series of whys and 
wherefores, concerning all the reasons of things connected with 
these varieties. These speculations, and the conflicting theories 
to which they have given birth, we will and bequeath to the 
more curious and speculative, and will farther premise some 
things necessary to a proper opening of the argument. 

Man, by his fall, or apostasy from God, lost three things — 
union with God, original righteousness, and original holiness. 
In consequence of these tremendous losses, he forfeited life, lost 
the right of inheriting the earth, and became subject to all the 
physical evils of this world. He is, therefore, with the earth on 
which he lives, doomed to destruction ; meanwhile, a remedial 
system is introduced, originating m the free, sovereign, and un- 
merited favour of God ; not, indeed, to restore man to an Eden 
lost — to an inheritance forfeited — to a life enjoyed before his 
alienation from his Divine Father and benefactor. This su- 
premely glorious and transcendent scheme of almighty love, 
contemplates a nearer, more intimate, and more sublime union 
with God, than that enjoyed in ancient Paradise — a union, too, 
enduring as eternity — as indestructible as the Divine essence. 
It bestows on man an everlasting righteousness, a perfect holi- 
ness, and an enduring blessedness in the presence of God for 
ever and ever. 

To accomplish this a new manifestation of the divinity became 
necessary. Hence the development of a plurality of existence in 
the Divine Nature. The God of the first chapter of Genesis is 
the Lord God of the second. Light advances as the pages of hu- 
man history multiply, until we have God, the Word of God, and 
the Spirit of God, revealed in the law, the prophets, and the 
Psalms. But, it was not until the Sun of Kighteousness arose — 
till the Word became incarnate and dwelt among us — till we be- 
held his glory as that of an only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth ; it was not till Jesus of Nazareth had finished 
the work of atonement on the hill of Calvary — till he had brought 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 289 

life and immortality to light, by his revival and resurrection 
from the sealed sepulchre of the Arimathean senator ; it was not 
till he gave a commission to convert the whole world, that the 
development of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit was fully perfected and completed. Since the descent of 
the Holy Spirit, on the birth-day of Christ^s church—since the 
glorious immersion of the three thousand triumphs of the memo- 
rable Pentecost, the church has enjoyed the mysterious and sub- 
lime light of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as 
one Divinity, manifesting itself in these incomprehensible rela- 
tions, in order to effect the complete recovery and perfect re- 
demption of man from the guilt, the pollution, the power, and 
the punishment of sin. 

No one believes more firmly than I, and no one, I presume, 
endeavours to teach more distinctly and comprehensively than 
I, this mysterious, sublime, and incomprehensible plurality and 
unity in the Godhead. It is a relation that may be apprehended 
by all, though comprehended by none. It has its insuperable 
necessity in the present condition of the universe. Without it, 
no one can believe in, or be reconciled to, the remedial policy, 
as developed in the apostolic writings. And, indeed, I have no 
more faith in any man^s profession of religion, than I have in 
the sincerity of Mahomet, who does not believe in the Father, 
and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit as co-operating in the 
illumination, pardon, and sanctification of fallen, sinful, and de- 
graded man. While, then, I repudiate, with all my heart, the 
scholastic jargon of the Arian, Unitarian, and Trinitarian hy- 
potheses, I stand up before heaven and earth in defence of the 
sacred style — in the fair, full, and perfect comprehension of all 
its words and sentences, according to the canons of a sound, exe- 
getical interpretation. 

I COULD not, indeed, esteem as of any value the religion of 
any man, as respects the grand affair of eternal life, whose reli- 
gion is not begun, carried on, and completed by the personal 
agency of the Holy Spirit. Nay, I esteem it the peculiar ex- 
cellence and glory of our religion, that it is spiritual ; that the 
soul of man is quickened, enlightened, sanctified and consoled 
by the indwelling presence of the Spirit of the eternal God. But, 
while avowing these my convictions, I have no more fellowship 
with those false and pernicious theories that confound the pecu- 
liar work of the Father with that, of the Son, or with that of the 

S15 



290 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Holy Spirit, or the work of any of these awful names with that 
of another ; or which represent our illumination, conversion, and 
sanctification as the work of the Spirit, without the knowledge, 
belief and obedience of the gospel, as written by the holy apos- 
tles and evangelists, than I have with the author and finisher of 
the book of Mormon. 

The revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not more 
clear and distinct than are the different offices assumed and per- 
formed by these glorious and ineffable Three in the present 
affairs of the universe. It is true, so far as unity of design and 
concurrence of action are contemplated, they co-operate in every 
work of creation, providence, and redemption. Such is the con- 
currence expressed by the Messiah in these words — " My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I worF^ — " I and my Father are one'' — 
" Whatsoever the Father doeth, the Son doeth likewise :'' but 
not such a concurrence as annuls personality, impairs or inter- 
feres with the distinct offices of each in the salvation of man. 
For example : the Father sends his Son, and not the Son his 
Father. The Father provides a body and soul for his Son, and 
not the Son for his Father. The Son offers up that body and 
soul for sin, and thus expiates it, which the Father does not, but 
accepts it. The Father and the Son send forth the Spirit, and 
not the Spirit either. The Spirit now advocates Christ's cause, 
and not Christ his own cause. The Holy Spirit now animates 
the church with his presence, and not Christ himself. He is 
the Head of the church, while the Spirit is the heart of it. The 
Father originates all, the Son executes all, the Spirit consum- 
mates all. Eternal volition, design, and mission belong to the 
Father ; reconciliation to the Son ; sanctification to the Spirit. 
In each of these terms there are numerous terms and ideas of 
subordinate extent, to which we cannot now advert. At present, 
we consider the subject in its general character, and not in its 
particular details. 

In the distribution of official agency, as it presents itself to our 
apprehension, with reference to the subject before us, we regard 
the benevolent design and plan of man's redemption, as origi- 
nating in the bosom of our Divine Father ; the atonement, or 
sacrificial ransom, as the peculiar work of the Messiah ; and the 
advocacy of his cause, in accomplishing the conversion and sanc- 
tification of the world, the peculiar mission and office of the Holy 
Spirit. Thus, the Spirit is the author of the written Word, as 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 291 

mucli as Jesus Christ is the author of the blood of atonement. 
The atoning blood of the everlasting covenant is not more pecu- 
liarly the blood of Jesus Christ, than is the Bible the immediate 
work of the Holy Spirit, inspired and dictated by him ; ''for 
holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." 
Now, as Jesus, the Messiah, in the work of mediation, operates 
through his blood; so the Holy Spirit, in his official agency, 
operates through his word and its ordinances. And thus we 
have arrived at the proper consideration of our proposition, to 
wit : In conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit operates 
only through the Word of Truth. 

In how many other ways the Spirit of God may operate in na- 
ture, or in society, in the way of dreams, visions, and miracles, 
comes not within the premises contained in our proposition. To 
what extent He may operate in suggestions, special providences, 
or in any other way, is neither affirmed nor denied in the propo- 
sition before us. It has respect to conversion and sanctification 
only. Whatever ground is fairly covered by these terms, be- 
longs to this discussion. What lies not within these precincts, 
comes not now legitimately before us. 

I. Our first argument in proof of our proposition shall be 
drawn from the constitution of the human mind. 

That the human mind has a specific and well-defined constitu- 
tion, is as evident as that the body has a peculiar organization ; 
or that the universe itself has one grand code of laws which 
governs it. Our intellectual and moral constitution, as well as 
our physical, has its peculiar powers and capacities — not one of 
which is violated on the part of its Creator, in our remedial ad- 
ministration, any more than are our sensitive and animal facul- 
ties destroyed or violated by the physician who rationally and 
benevolently aims at our restoration to health from some physi- 
cal malady. No new faculties are imparted — no old faculty de- 
stroyed ! They are neither more nor less in number ; they are 
neither better nor worse in kind. Paul the apostle and Saul of 
Tarsus are the same person, so far as all the animal, intellectual, 
and moral powers are concerned. His mental and physical tem- 
peraments were just the same after, as before he became a Chris- 
tian. The Spirit of God, in effecting this great change, does not 
violate, metamorphose, or annihilate any power or faculty of the 
man, in making the saint. He merely receives new ideas, and 
new impressions, and undergoes a great moral or spiritual 



292 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

change — so that he becomes alive wherein he was dead, and 
dead wherein he was formerly alive. 

As the body or outward man has its peculiar organization, so 
has the mind. Both are organized in perfect adaptation to a 
world without us : the one to a world of sensible and material 
objects, the other to that world, and to a spiritual system also, 
with which it is to have spiritual intimacy and communion. 
But the mind is to commune with its Creator, and its Creator 
with it, through material as well as through spiritual nature t 
and for this purpose he has endowed it with faculties, and the 
body with senses, favourable to these benevolent designs. 

Now, as the body has to subsist upon material nature, and 
the mind upon the spiritual system, both are so organized and 
furnished as to secure and assimilate so much of both as are 
necessary for this end. Thus, for example, the body lives, 
moves, and has its being in the midst of matter from which it is 
to draw perpetual sustenance and comfort. For doing this, it is 
admirably fitted with an animal machinery, created for this pur- 
pose, without which animal life would immediately become ex- 
tinct. The lungs are fitted for respiration, and the stomach is 
furnished with all the powers necessary to the reception, diges- 
tion, and assimilation of so much material nature as is necessary 
to the healthful, vigorous, and comfortable subsistence of the 
body. But nothing from without can afford it subsistence or ' 
comfort, but in harmony with this organization. 

Man, then, has to live by breathing, eating, and drinking ; 
and, without these operations, nothing around him can afford 
him life and comfort. Nothing of the bounties of nature can 
administer to his animal enjoyments in any other way. God, 
then, feeds and sustains man in perfect harmony with this 
organization. He neither dispenses with any of these powers 
nor violates them, in supporting physical life and comfort. 

Precisely so is it in the spiritual system. The mind has its 
powers of receiving, assimilating, and enjoying whatever is suit- 
able to itself, as the body with which it is furnished. While 
imbodied, it has only its own proper faculties ; but it has, also, 
organs and senses in the body, by and through which it com- 
munes with matter and with spirit, with God, and nature, and 
man ; and through which they commune with it. It receives 
all the ideas of material nature by outward, bodily senses, with- 
out which it could not have one idea or impression of the exter- 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 293 

nal universe. A blind man has no idea of colours, nor a deaf 
man of sounds. Since the world began, every man sees by his 
eyes and hears by his ears. Whatever knowledge, therefore, is 
peculiar to any sense can never be acquired by another. If God 
give sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf, he does it by re- 
storing these senses ; for, since the world began, no man has 
ever seen by his ears nor heard by his eyes. 

So true it is, that all our ideas of the sensible universe are the re- 
sult of sensation and reflection. All the knowledge we have of ma- 
terial nature has been acquired by the exercise of our senses and 
of our reason upon those discoveries. With regard to the super- 
natural knowledge, or the knowledge of God, that comes wholly 
^^hj faith,'' and "faith^^ itself "comes by hearing.'^ This apho- 
rism is divine. Faith is, therefore, a consequence of hearing, 
and hearing is an effect of speaking ; for, hearing comes by the 
Word of God spoken, as much as faith itself comes by hearing. 
The intellectual and moral arrangement is, therefore — 1. The 
word spoken; 2. Hearing; 3. Believing; 4. Feeling; 5. Doing. 
Such is the constitution of the human mind — a constitution 
divine and excellent, adapted to man's position in the universe. 
It is never violated in the moral government of God. Eeligious 
action is uniformly the effect of religious feeling ; that is the 
effect of faith ; that of hearing ; and that of something spoken 
by God. 

Now, as faith in God is the first principle — the soul-renewing 
principle of religion ; as it is the regenerating, justifying, sanc- 
tifying principle, — without it, it is impossible to be acceptable to 
God. With it, a man is a son of Abraham, a son of God ; an 
heir apparent to eternal life — an everlasting kingdom. 

And what is Christian faith ? It is a belief of testimony. It 
is a persuasion that God is true ; that the gospel is divine ; that 
God is love ; that Christ's death is the sinner's life. It is trust 
in God. It is a reliance upon his truth, his faithfulness, his 
power. It is not merely a cold assent to truth, to testimony ; 
but a cordial, joyful consent to it, and reception of it. 

Still, it is dependent on testimony. No testimony, no faith. 
The Spirit of God gave the testimony first. It bore witness to 
Jesus. It expected no faith without something to believe. 
Something to believe is always presented to faith ; and that 
something must be heard before it can be believed ; for, until it 
is heard, it is as though it were not — a nonentity. But it is not 

25* 



294 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

enough that it be heard by the outward ear. God has given to 
every man an inward as well as an outward ear. The outward 
recognises sounds only ; the inward recognises sense. Faith is, 
therefore, impossible without language ; and, consequently, 
without the knowledge of language, and that language under- 
stood. It is neither necessary nor possible, without language — • 
intelligible language. An infant cannot have faith ; but it 
needs neither faith, nor regeneration, nor baptism. It was a 
^gment of St. Augustine, adopted by Calvin, propagated in his 
Institutes, and adopted by his children. 

These infant regenerators are lame in both limbs : in the 
right limb of faith, and in the left limb of philosophy. They 
move on crutches, and broken crutches, too. They have no 
philosophy of mind, or else they abandon it in all their theolo- 
gical embarrassments. They will have infants regenerated, and 
souls morally dead quickened by a direct impulse. The Spirit 
-of God is supposed to incubate their souls — to descend upon 
them and work a grace in them — a faith without reason, with- 
out argument, without evidence, without intelligence, without 
perception, without fear, hope, love, confidence, or approbation. 

The whole system of Calvinism, of Arminianism, is crazy just 
at this point. They build a world upon the back of a tortoise ; 
they build palaces upon ice, and repose upon couches of ether. 
They have not one clear idea on the subject of regeneration. It 
is to them a mystery — a cabalistic word — a mere shibboleth. 
The philosophy of mind is converted into a heap of ruins. They 
have the Spirit of God operating without testimony — without 
apprehension or comprehension — without sense, susceptibility, 
or feeling : and all this for the sake of an incomprehensible, un- 
intelligible, and worse than useless theory. I, therefore, ex 
animo, repudiate their whole theory of mystic influence, and 
metaphysical regeneration, as a vision of visions, a dream of 
dreams, at war with philosophy, with the philosophy of mind, 
with the Bible, with reason, with common sense, and with all 
Christian experience. 

Arc. II. — A second argument is deduced from the fact, that 
no living man has ever been heard of, and none can now be 
found, possessed of a single conception of Christianity, of one 
spiritual thought, feeling, or emotion, where the Bible, or some 
tradition from it, has not been before him. Where the Bible has 
not been sent, or its traditions developed, there is not one single 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 295 

Spiritual idea, word, or action. It is all midnight— a gloom 
profound — utter darkness. What stronger evidence can be ad- 
duced, than this most evident and indisputable fact ? It weighs 
more than a thousand volumes of metaphysical speculations. 

One would most rationally conclude, that, if the Spirit of God 
did anywhere illuminate the human mind, or work into the 
heart the principle of faith previous to, and independent of, any 
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, he would most probably do 
it in those portions of the earth, and amid those vast masses of 
human kind, entirely destitute of the Word of Life ; wholly igno- 
rant of the "only name given under the whole heaven,'^ by 
which any sinful man can be saved. If, then, he has never 
operated in this way, where the Bible has never gone, who can 
prove that he so operates here, where the Bible is enjoyed ? 

When, then, we reflect upon the melancholy fact so often 
pressed upon the attention of Christendom, by her missionaries 
to heathen lands, that not one-third of human kind enjoy the 
name of Jesus ; that six-tenths or seven-tenths of mankind are 
wholly given up to the most stupid idolatries and delusions; 
that pagan darkness and Mohammedan impostures cover the 
fairest and largest portions of our earth, and engulf the great 
majority of our race in the most debasing superstitions — in the 
grossest ignorance, sensuality, and vice; and that from these 
is withholden all spiritual and Divine influence of a regene- 
rating and salutary character, so far as all documentary evi- 
dence avoucheth. If, then, indeed, the Spirit of the Bible, the 
Holy Spirit of our God, did, at all, travel out of the record, and 
work faith, or communicate intelligence, without verbal testi- 
mony, methinks this is the proper field. And there being no 
evidence of his having so done, is it not a fact, as clear as a 
revelation from heaven — clear as demonstration itself— that the 
illuminating, regenerating, converting, sanctifying influence of 
the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation are not antecedent to, nor 
independent of, the written oracles of that Spirit ? 

Arg. III. — A third argument is deduced from the fact, that no 
one, professing to have been the subject of the illuminating, 
converting, and sanctifying operations of the Spirit of God, can 
ever express a single right conception or idea on the whole sub- 
ject of spiritual things, not already found in the written word. 
We have been favoured with numerous revelations of the expe- 
riences of the most spiritually-minded and excellent Christians 



296 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

of this our age. And, on listening to them with the strictest 
attention, marking, with all our powers of discrimination, every 
idea, sentiment, and expression as uttered, I have never heard 
one suggestion, containing the feeblest ray of light, which was 
not eighteen hundred years old, and already found in the Holy 
Scriptures — read of all men who choose to learn w;hat the Spirit 
of God has said to saints and sinners. Evident, then, it is, 
from this fact, which, I presume, I may also call an incontro- 
vertible fact, that no light is communicated by the Holy Spirit, 
in regenerating and converting men ; which is equivalent to 
saying, that, "in conversion and sanctification, the Spirit of Grod 
operates only through the Word of Truth.'^ 

Arg. IV. — A fourth argument is derived from another fact, 
which calls for special consideration just at this point, to wit : 
whatever is essential to regeneration in any case, is essential to it 
in all cases. The change, called regeneration, is a specific 
change. It consists of certain elements, and is effected by a 
special agency. If it be a new heart given, a new life commu- 
nicated, it is accomplished in all cases, as generation is, by the 
same agency and instrumentality. If then, the Spirit of God, 
without faith, without the knowledge of the gospel, in any case, 
regenerates an individual, it does so in all cases. But if faith 
in God, or a knowledge of Christ, is essential in one case, it is 
essential in every other case. 

Now, this being admitted, as I presume it will be, without 
farther argument or illustration, follows it not, then, that nei- 
ther the Word of God nor the Gospel of Christ, neither preach- 
ing nor teaching, neither hearing nor believing is necessary to 
regeneration, according to the doctrine of the Protestant church? 
Inasmuch as that church of churches believes and teaches that 
infants and pagans are regenerated, in some cases, without any 
instrumentality at all, by the direct, naked, and abstract influ- 
ence of the Spirit of God operating immediately upon their 
souls. As this is a most essential affair in this discussion, it is 
all-important that we deliver ourselves in the very words of the 
most orthodox of these churches : — 

"This effectual call is of God's free and especial grace alone; 
not from any thing at all foreseen in man : nor from any power 
or agency in the creature co-working with his special grace, the 
Cixature being loholly passive therein; being dead in sins and 
trespasses, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 297 

Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace 
the grace offered and contained in it ; and that by no less power 
than that which raised up Christ from the dead. Elect infants, 
dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through 
the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleases ; 
so also are other elect persons, who are incapable of being out- 
wardly called by the ministry of the word/^^ 

Now, I ask of what use is the ministry of the Word in any 
case, so far as regeneration is concerned? This is a point on 
which I am peculiarly solicitous of illumination. Surely faith, 
and preaching, and the gospel ministry are all vain and useless 
in making a man a new creature, if dying infants and untaught 
pagans may be regenerated by the Spirit alone, without faith, 
knowledge, or any illumination whatever. Nay, indeed, if my 
position be true, and true it most assuredly is, that whatever is 
essential to regeneration in any case is essential in all cases, 
then, although we have three classes of subjects, to wit, elect 
infants, elect pagans, and elect gospel hearers, we have for them 
all one and the same species of regeneration. 

Miracles truly never cease on this hypothesis: inasmuch aa 
the regeneration of every infant is a demonstration of a power 
as supernatural as the resurrection of the Messiah. Unfor- 
tunately, however, this power is not only never displayed to 
our conviction at the time, nor ever so displayed after the event 
as to become an object of perception, much less of sensible 
demonstration. If, indeed, as it sometimes happens in some 
branches of this school, regeneration is not regarded as another 
name for conversion and sanctification, but a previous work, 
then it will be important that we be enlightened on the question, 
How long the interval between regeneration and conversion, 
between regeneration and faith, and between regeneration and 
the dying infant's or pagan's exit ? For if the interval be such 
as to preclude the possibility of conversion and sanctification, 
we should have the startling fact promulged, that infants, and 
pagans too, dying regenerate, enter heaven without being con- 
verted! Another curious question will Certainly arise. Of 
what use is infant baptism, according to such a theory of re- 
generation ? For, if elect infants are regenerated without know- 
ledge, faith, repentance, or baptism, and if non-elect infants, 

* So speaks the Presbyterian Confession, chap. x. ^ 2, 3. 



298 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

though baptized, are not regenerated, why have such a war of 
words about a matter virtually worth nothing to the living or to 
the dead ? 

Arg. V. — A fifth argument shall be deduced from the Holy 
Spirit^s own method of addressing unconverted men; by signs 
addressed to the sense, and words to the understanding and 
affections. The Messiah himself, the Seventy Evangelists, and 
the Twelve Apostles were accomplished and fitted for their 
ministry to the world by such inspirations and accompanying 
powers as human nature and society, Jewish and pagan, then 
required, and I presume always will require. They were first 
sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; and afterwards the 
Apostles were sent to the Gentiles. Now, in seeking to regene- 
rate and save the human family, they, divinely guided, uttered 
human words, and accompanied them with certain miracles. 
These were the means sup ernatur ally chosen and used. They 
were certainly apposite means ; appropriate and fitted to the 
end proposed by the donor of this intelligence and power. He 
seems to have sought admission into the hearts of the people 
by these glorious displays of Divine power presented to the eye, 
and these words of grace addressed to the ear. They saw the 
sick healed, the leper cleansed, demons dispossessed, and the 
dead raised; and, while seeing these solemn and significant 
arguments, they heard words of tenderness — words of pardon 
and of life, spoken with a divine earnestness, with a heavenly 
sympathy and affection. Thus the Spirit sought to convert 
them. He used means, rational means ; therefore, we argue, 
such means were necessary, and are still, in certain modifica- 
tions of that same supernatural grandeur, necessary to con- 
version and sanctification. Signs, as Paul explains them, were 
necessary, not for believers, but for unbelievers. They were 
necessary to faith. The miracle opened the heart, the testi- 
mony of the Lord entered, and the Spirit of God with it; and 
the work of conversion was finished. 

Now, may we not conclude that miracles and words are not 
a mere redundancy— a mere superfluity? May we not regard 
them as essential means, employed by the Holy Spirit, in ac- 
complishing his work? It is, perhaps, important also to say, 
that the proof of a proposition is always subordinate in rank to 
the proposition which it proves. The life is not in the miracle, 
but in that which the miracle proves. The grand proposition 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 299 

is, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the 
world. He that believes this proposition is "begotten of God.'' 
It is the *' incorruptible seed.'' It is the "living Word." It 
abideth for ever. The church of the Messiah is built upon it. 
The promises, then, certainly justify the conclusion, that, in 
converting and sanctifying the world, the inspired Apostles and 
Evangelists used means of divine authority; and neither did 
depend upon, nor teach others to depend upon any agency from 
above, dispensing with such an instrumentality. 

Arg. VI. — A sixth argument is derived from the name chosen 
by the Messiah as the official designation of the Holy Spirit. 
He calls him the Paracleios, and that, too, with a special refer- 
ence to his new mission. This term, occurring some five times 
in the apostolic writings, is, in the common version, translated 
both comforter and advocate; and, by Dr. Campbell, monitor. 
As an official name, I prefer advocate to either of the others. It 
is generic, and comprehends them both. An advocate may be 
a monitor, or a comforter ; but a monitor, or a comforter, is not 
necessarily an advocate. Now, as the Spirit is to advocate 
Christ's cause, he must use means. Hence, when Jesus gives 
him the work of conviction, he furnishes him with suitable and 
competent arguments to effect the end of his mission. He was 
to convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. In 
accomplishing this, he was to argue from three topics — 1. The 
unbelief of the world; 2. Christ^s reception in heaven; 3. The 
dethronement of his great adversary, the Prince of this world. 
Then the person, mission, and character of the Messiah alone 
came into his pleadings. Jesus promised him the documents. 
And, indeed, the Four Evangelists are arranged upon the in- 
struction given by the Messiah to his advocate. In converting 
men, the Spirit, the Holy Advocate, was to speak of Jesus. 
Hence, speaking of Jesus by the Spirit, is all that was necessary 
to the conversion of men. The official service and work thus 
assigned the Holy Spirit is a standing evidence that, in con- 
version, and sanctification, he operates only through the Word. 
And, as it has already been shown conversion is, in all cases, 
the same work, he operates in this department only by and 
through the Word, spoken or written; and neither physically 
nor metaphysically. 

Arg. YII. — A seventh argument shall be deduced from the 
opening of the commission ; from the gift of tongues, by which 



800 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

the Advocate commenced his operations. That the Messiah had 
a commission for convincing and converting the world has been 
already shown. That he was to use arguments has been fully 
proved ; that he was to speak and work also ; that, by signs and 
miracles he accompanied the Word, and made it effectual. 
Now, that language is essential to the completion of the com- 
mission, is farther proved from the great fact, that the first gift 
of the Holy Spirit, under the Messiah's commission, was the 
gift of tongues. 

Language, not merely the various dialects of human speech, 
"but language itself — not Hebrew, Greek, and Roman — but that 
of which Hebrew, Greek, and Roman are mere dialects, forms, 
or modes, is essential. He gave the first, and he gave the second. 
He made glorious display of the use of language, of the need of 
tongues, in commencing his new work. He gave utterance ; for 
utterance is his gift. So Paul to the Corinthians said, "You 
are enriched by him in all knowledge, and in all utterance.'' 
The day of Pentecost is the best comment on this whole subject 
of spiritual influence ever written. We have much use for it in 
this discussion. It is just as useful on the work of the Spirit, 
as on the genius and design of baptism. 

It seldom occurs to us, that all Christendom — the living world, 
is now indebted for the very book that records the name, and 
embalms the memory of the Messiah, and for all that is known 
of the Holy Spirit — for the very language of the new covenant " 
— for the Gospel of the kingdom — and for every spiritual idea 
and conception of God, of heaven, of immortality, of our origin, 
nature, relations, obligations, and destiny, to the immediate 
agency of this Spirit of all Wisdom and Revelation — to the gift 
of tongues, or of language. Yet, true to the letter it is, that 
*^no one could say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.'' 

Some among us, through the ignorance that is in them on this 
grand theme, ascribe to the human mind the powers of the Holy 
Spirit. They describe the human mind as possessing some sort 
of innate power of originating spiritual ideas ; to arrive at the 
knowledge of God by the mere contemplation of nature. They 
annihilate the doctrine of the fall; of human imbecility and de- 
pravity, and adorn human reason with a very splendid pla- 
giarism, called natural religion. While at variance on almost 
every thing else, the mental philosopher and the Deist, the Ro- 
manist and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian 



CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 801 

admirably coalesce and harmonize in this self-congratulatory 
assumption. They say, that man can, by the feeble, glimmering 
rush-light of his own studies of nature, either descend from his 
a 'priori, or ascend from his a posteriori reasonings to God — to 
the apprehension of his very being and perfections ; human r€H 
eponsibility, the souFs immortality, and a future state of rewards 
and punishments, without the Bible, and without the teaching 
of the Holy Spirit. 

We have neither so studied nature nor learned the Bible. 
"We subscribe to Paul's dogma, "The world by wisdom knew 
not God,'' and agree with him, that " it is by faith," and not by 
reason, "we know that the worlds were formed by the Word of 
God — so that things now seen existing did not formerly exist.'' 
We, indeed, ascribe all our ideas of spirit and of a spiritual sys- 
tem — our conceptions of God as creator — of creation itself, of 
providence, and of redemption, to one and the same Spirit, and 
to that Logos who, in one form or other, has been the prophet or 
the advocate of the Messiah and his cause, for some six thou- 
sand years. 

We go farther. We assign to the Spirit of all Wisdom and 
Revelation the origination of the spiritual language ; perhaps, 
indeed, of all language. The most enlightened men, whether 
pagans, Jews, or Christians, regard language as a divine reve- 
lation — even that large portion of it derived from sensible ob- 
jects. The philosophers, from Plato down to Dr. Whitby, have 
claimed for the Supreme God this honour. They have refused 
it to either civilized or uncivilized man — to all conventional 
agreement. They have handled, with great effect, the plainest 
of propositions, that councils could not be convened ; that if they 
had spontaneously arisen, no motions could have been made, no 
debates commenced nor conducted without the use of speech. 
Philosophers assume that men think in words, as well as com- 
municate by them ; or, at least, have some image of the thing, 
natural or artificial, or they cannot even think about it. The 
natural process, which can easily be made intelligible to all, is, 
that the tiling is pre-existent, the idea of it next, and the loord 
last. The line ascending is the word, the idea, the thing. The 
line descending is the thing, the idea, the word. Now, as the 
line descending is necessarily the first, we must, especially iu 
things spiritual, admit that the spiritual things could be commu- 
nicated to man only by one that comprehends them, who had 

26 



802 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

Been them, and who selected from the elements of that language 
first given to man, when he conversed face to face with God in 
Eden, the proper materials for words to communicate things 
spiritual. In strict accordance with this assumption, Moses 
teaches us that God conferred with Adam, and continued his 
lessons until Adam was able to give every creature around him 
a suitable name. That language commenced in this way all ad- 
mit, from one fact, to wit: Every one speaks the language 
WHICH HE FIRST HEARS. This is his vcmacular. A miracle is 
before us. The first man spoke without being spoken to ; else 
God spoke to him. Either is a miracle : and of the two, the lat- 
ter is of the easiest credence ; and, indeed, it is to the faithful 
evidently true from the words of Moses. With Plato, then, I 
say, that God taught the primitive words, and from that, man 
manufactured the derivatives. With Newton, I say, God gave 
man reason and religion by giving him speech. With tradition, 
I say, that the god Thath of the Egyptians is the Theos of the 
Bible, and the Logos of the New Testament. The Logos incar- 
nate is the Messiah of Christianity. Therefore, the Spirit of 
God, now the Spirit of the Word, is the origin of all spiritual 
words and conceptions. With Paul, therefore, I say, "We speak 
spiritual things in spiritual words, or words which the spirit 
teacheth, expressing spiritual things in spiritual words.'^ 

Arg. VIII. — An eighth argument may be drawn from 1 Peter i. 
23, " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorrupti- 
ble seed, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever/^ 
Now, as we all remember, our Lord himself compares his Word, 
or the Word of God, to seed planted or sown ; and, under the 
parable of the sower, represents its various fortunes, and beau- 
tifully teaches the true philosophy of conversion in the fact, that 
the good ground is the man who " receives the Word of God in an 
honest heart J ^ Under both metaphors, drawn the one from the 
vegetable, the other from the animal kingdom, the word of God 
is the seed, of which we are born again or renewed in heart and 
life. This Word of God liveth and abideth : for God lives and 
abides for ever. 

With regard to the essentiality of the seed. We all know 
that in the vegetable kingdom, without seed there is no harvest, 
no fruit. And, as certain it is, that when the Word of God is 
not first sown in the heart, there can be no regeneration, or re- 
newal of the spirit, and, consequently, no fruit brought forth 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 803 

unto eternal life. So the metaphors taken from the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, teach the same lesson. But does not the 
mere fact that Peter says, " we are born again of incorruptible 
seed,^' declare that where this incorruptible seed is not, there 
can be no birth ! 

Is it necessary now to traverse the whole face of nature, to ex- 
plore the whole kingdom of botany, to find a plant without a 
seed, in order to prove the proposition, that evert/ ear of corn 
comes from one grain of seed deposited in the earth f No more is 
it essential to my argument, that I should first hear all the con- 
versions in the world, before I conclude that there is one that 
originated without the word of God having been first sown in 
the human heart. Will not all the world believe me, that if I 
prove in one case that without the specific seed, — corn, wheat, 
&c., we cannot have a crop, that it is true in all other cases, with- 
out a particular examination of every alleged case. And from 
every principle of analogy, if I prove the Word in one case of a 
new heart to be necessary, it needs not that I prove it to be so 
in every other heart, and in every other case. The mere fact of 
calling the Gospel the incorruptible seed, is enough. Where 
that seed is not, the fruit of it cannot be. 

The phrase, "the incorruptible seed^' of any thing, indi- 
cates, in the ears of common sense, that is essential to that 
thing ; and if so, then who can be a Christian without being 
born ? — and who can be born but according to one uniform and 
immutable law ? Now, in the theory we oppose, there is no uni- 
formity ; there is a plurality of ways of being born, which, to 
my mind, is most palpably at fault in every particular. 

But I will adduce some other testimonies under this head of 
argument. We shall hear James the apostle, chapter i. 18 : 
" Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we 
should be a kind of first fruits of his creation.'^ Hence the 
truth again appears as an instrument of regeneration. God's 
will is the origin of it ; his Spirit the efficient cause of it ; but 
the Word is the necessary instrument of it. By the Word of 
Truth, then, we are begotten, and not without it, according to 
James. We may add testimonies without increasing either au- 
thority or evidence ; but, for the sake of illustration, if not for 
authority, we shall offer a few other testimonies to complete this 
particular argument. We shall hear Paul, as 2^ father, speak to 
his sons in the faith in Corinth — 1 Cor. iv. 15 : "As my beloved 



304 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

sons I warn you ; for though you have ten thousand instructors 
in Christ, yet you have not many fathers ; for in Christ Jesus 
have I begotten you through the gospel/' Paul regards the gos- 
pel just in the same attitude in vrhich James represents it. The 
gospel is here the seed, the instrument of the conversion of the 
Corinthians. 

But the whole oracle of God is unique on this subject. God 
'* purifies the heart by faith/' that is, the truth believed — not by 
believing as an act of the mind, but by the truth believed, which 
constitutes " the faith.'' Paul also told the Thessalonians that 
God had, " from the beginning, chosen them to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.'' Here again 
the belief of the truth is the instrument of sanctification and sal- 
vation. I shall conclude this little summary of a portion of the 
direct and positive testimony of God, in proof of my grand posi- 
tion on the Holy Spirit's work of conversion and sanctification, 
by the testimony of the Messiah, in person : *' Sanctify them 
through thy truth, Father, for thy Word is the truth.'' 
Whether, then, we call the truth the Word, the Woi^d of God the 
gospel, it is called the seed, the incorruptible seed of the new 
birth ; by which a sinner is quickened, begotten, born, sancti- 
fied, purified, and saved. I regard this my eighth argument as a 
host in itself — nay, as a solemn, direct, and unequivocal decla- 
ration of God, in attestation of the entire truth and safety of the 
proposition concerning both conversion and sanctification. Still 
I will yet add other arguments. 

Arg. IX. — One shall be based on the special commission 
given to Paul, as expounded by that given to the Messiah him- 
self. And therefore, we shall read that to the Messiah, as in- 
troductory to that presented to the apostle Paul. ** I give thee," 
gays Jehovah, "for a covenant of the people ; for a light of the 
Gentiles ; to open the blind eyes; to bring out the prisoners from 
the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison- 
house." " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ; because the 
Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he 
hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty 
to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the 
day of vengeance of our God ; to comfort all that mourn." 
Isaiah xlii. 6, 7 ; Ixi. 1, 2. We shall now hear Paul relate his 
own, as he had it from the mouth of the Lord : " I have appeared 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 305 

unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a wit- 
ness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those 
things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee 
from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send 
thee — to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, 
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
the forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are 
sanctified by faith, that is in me.^' Here, then, we have a full 
development, in these grand commissions, of the manner and 
means employed in the wisdom and grace of God in converting 
and sanctifying the nations of the earth, through the mediation 
of the Messiah. The most conspicuous point, or the chief means 
stated, is — that God would use ligM, knowledge, the gospel, and 
that he would open the eyes of men — turning them from dark- 
ness to light, and from the kingdom and power of Satan to God. 
God, then, who commanded light to arise out of darkness, has 
used moral, spiritual light — that is, revelation, the gospel — as the 
means of conversion and sanctification. Illumination is, there- 
fore, an essential prerequisite to conversion and holiness. With- 
out light there is no beauty ; for in the dark, beauty and de- 
formity are undistinguishable. Without light there is nothing 
amiable, because amiability requires the aid of light for its ex- 
position, as much as beauty. The power of Satan is in dark- 
ness; the power of God is in light, God, therefore, works by 
light ; and Satan by darkness. Hence, in PauFs commission, it 
reads, "Turn them from darkness to light;'' and the conse- 
quences will be, " from the power of Satan to God ;'' and the ulti- 
mate efiect will be remission of sins, and an inheritance among 
the sanctified. After the study of these, and many such simi- 
lar documents, found in the Bible, I confess I am wholly una- 
ble to conceive of a religion without knowledge, without faith, 
without an apprehension, an intelligent, as well as a cordial re- 
ception of the gospel of Christ. I repudiate, therefore, with my 
whole heart, a notion of infant, idiot, and pagan regeneration — 
this speculative conversion, without light, knowledge, faith, hope, 
or love. It makes void the whole moral machinery of the 
Bible, the Christian ministry, and the commission of the Holy 
Spirit. It is no advocate of Christ ; it is no comforter of the 
soul, on the hypothesis of infant, and pagan, and idiot regene- 
ration. 

Arg. X. — Whatever influence is ascribed to the Word of God in 

26* 



806 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

{he Sacred ScHptures, is also ascribed to the Spirit of God. Or 
in other words, what the Spirit of God is at one time, and in 
one place, said to do, is, at some other time, or in some other 
place, ascribed to the Word of God. Hence I argue that they 
do not operate separately, but in all cases conjointly. We shall 
give an induction of a number of cases in exemplification of the 
fact. Are we said to be enlightened by the Spirit of God ? 
We are told in another place, "The commandment of the Lord 
is pure, enlightening the eyes.^^ Again — *'The entrance of thy 
word giveth light, and makes the simple wise." Are we said 
to be converted by the Spirit of God ? we hear the Prophet Da- 
vid say, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." 
Are we said to be sanctified through the Spirit of God ? we hear 
our Lord pray to' his Father, "Sanctify them through thy truth, 
thy Word is the truth." Are we said to be quickened by the 
Spirit of God ? the same is ascribed to the Word of God. David 
says, "Thy Word, Lord, hath quickened me." " Stay me with 
thy precepts, thy statutes quicken me." This is one of the 
strongest expressions. 

In other forms of speech, the same efi'eots and influence are 
ascribed to both. Paul, in one text, says, "Be filled with the 
Spirit ;" and, when again speaking of the same subject, in an- 
other, he says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." 
In both cases, the precepts are to be fulfilled in the same 
way, " Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and 
hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your hearts to 
the Lord." "The Spirit," says Paul to Timothy, "speaketh 
expressly that in the latter days, some shall depart from the 
faith." Again — " Know ye, in the last days, perilous times shall 
come." Again — Paul says he has sanctified the church, and 
cleansed it with "a bath of water and the Word." In another 
instance, he says, he hath saved us "with the washing of re- 
generation and the renewal of the Holy Spirit." Are we said 
to be " born of the Spirit?" we are also said to be born again, 
or "regenerated by the Word of God." I might trace this mat- 
ter much farther ; but, I presume, as we have touched upon the 
most important items, we have found such an induction as will 
satisfy the most scrupulous. Until questioned, I shall strongly 
affirm it as a conclusion fairly drawn, that whatever effects or 
influences connected with conversion and sanctification are, in 
one portion of Scripture, assigned to the Word, are ascribed 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 307 

also to the Spirit ; and so interchangeably throughout both Tes- 
taments. Whence we conclude, that the Spirit and the Word 
of God are not separate and distinct kinds of power — the one 
Buperadded to the other — but both acting conjointly and simul- 
taneously in the work of sanctification and salvation. 

Arg. XI. — An eleventh argument is deduced from the import- 
ant fact, that resisting the Word of God, and resisting the Spirit 
of God, are shown to be the same thing, by very clear and ex- 
plicit testimonies : such as Stephen, the proto-martyr, when 
filled with the Holy Spirit, and, indeed, speaking as the Holy 
Spirit gave him utterance, in the presence of the Sanhedrim, 
said, '' You circumcised in heart and ears, as your fathers did, 
so do you. You do always resist the Holy Spirit.'^ What proof 
does he allege? He adds, " As your fathers did, so do you,'^ 
(resist.) *' Which of the prophets did they not persecute?'' 
This, then, is his proof. In persecuting the Prophets, they re- 
sisted the Holy Spirit ; because the words spoken by the Pro- 
phets were suggested by the Spirit. We are said to resist a 
person when we resist his word. When, then, any one resists 
the words of the Prophets or the Apostles, he is said by inspired 
men to resist the Holy Spirit. This important fact should be 
more frequently insisted on than it is. Men should be taught, 
that, in resisting the words spoken by Apostles and Prophets, 
they are, in truth, resisting the Holy Spirit, by whom they 
uttered those words. May we not, then, consistently say with 
Stephen, that, when men resist the Prophets and Apostles in 
their writings, and will not submit to their teachings, they are 
resisting the Holy Spirit ? This being admitted, follows it not 
again, that the Spirit of God operates through the truth ; and 
that we are not to suppose that, in conversion and sanctifica- 
tion, they do operate separately and distinctly from each other ? 

A still more impressive instance of this kind we find in the 
book of Nehemiah. In his admirable prayer, preserved in the 
ninth chapter, he has two very remarkable expressions ; one in 
the 20th and one in the 29th verse. In the former, when speak- 
ing of the instructions given the Jews by Moses, he said, *'Thou 
gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them -/^ and in the latter, 
he says, ''Many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst 
against them by thy Spirit in thy Prophets, yet would they not 
hear.'' Here, then, we are taught that God, by his Spirit, in 
Moses, instructed the Jews by his good Spirit, and that, in tcs- 



808 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

tifjing to them by the Prophets, God was testifying to them by 
his Holy Spirit. We are, then, still more fully confirmed in the 
conclusion that the Spirit of God operates through his Word, 
and only through his Word, in conversion and sanctification ; 
and that the Word and Spirit of God, in those spiritual and 
moral changes and influences of which we now speak, are 
never to be regarded as operating apart ; that whatever is done 
by the AYord of God, is done by the Spirit of God ; and what- 
ever is done by the Spirit, is done through the Truth — and cer- 
tainly he can through that instrument operate most powerfully 
on the spirit of man, as all Christian experience and the saints 
of all time exhibit. 

Arg. XII. — A twelfth argument is deduced from the fact, 
that God created nothing without his Word. " He said. Let 
there be light, and there was light.^^ "By faith,'' says Paul, 
**we know that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.'' 
All the details of the six days show that **God made all things 
by the Word of his power." Of course, then, we have no idea 
of any new creation or regeneration without the Word of God. 
It is an overwhelming fact, that God does nothing in creation or 
redemption without his Word. His creative power has always 
been imbodied in that sublime instrument. Nay, it is the sword 
of the Spirit. Still, there was, through that Word^ an Almighty 
power put forth, and still there is both in conversion and sancti- 
fication. God works mightily in the human heart by his Word. 
The heart of the King's enemies are mightily broken by it. 
Hence, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of 
God. 

Indeed, there is much of this wisdom of God apparent in the 
fact that he has chosen the term Logos to represent the Author 
and Founder of the Christian faith, in its antecedent state of 
existence. And, hence, John represents Jesus Christ himself 
as the Word of God incarnate: "Now the Word was made flesh," 
or became flesh, "and dwelt amongst us." This is a mysterious 
name. He had a name given him which no one can compre- 
hend. His name is the Word of God. Now, as Jesus Christ 
was "once God manifest in Word," and now God manifest 
in flesh, we have reason to regard the Word of God as aA imbo- 
diment of his wisdom and power. This, however, is spoken 
with a reference to the gospel Word ; for Jesus Christ is both 
the wisdom and the power of God, and so is his gospel ) because 



CONSEQUENTS OE BAPTISM. 809 

containing this development. It is the wisdom and power of 
God unto salvation, to every one that believes it. 

It was not, however, in a creating light alone that God em- 
ployed his Word. Every work of creation is represented as the 
product of his Word. He said, *'Let there be a firmament in 
the midst of the waters,^^ and it was so. Again, "Let the dry 
land appear,'' and it was so. "Let the earth bring forth grass,'' 
and it was so. And, last of all, "Let us make man in our own 
image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. So God 
created man." God, therefore, made man in his own image by 
his Word, and he now restores him to that same image by his 
Word of power. Thus, we have all the authority of the Bible 
with us, in our views of spiritual and Divine influence. A spi- 
ritual, or moral, or creative power, without the Word of God, is 
a phantom, a mere speculation. It receives no countenance 
from the Bible. 

Arg. XIII. — The Lord has imbodied his Will in his Word. 
Now the will of God is another form of his power. Divine vo- 
lition is Divine power. The Word of God is the fiat of God. 
"Xe^ thefi^e 6e," is a mere volition expressed. Indeed, we may 
go farther and say, that the Word of the Lord is the Lord him- 
self. The word of a king is the king himself, so far as autho- 
rity or power is considered. As the Lord Jesus is the Word of 
God incarnate, so is his Word an imbodiment of his power. 
For, as Solomon says, "Where the word of a king is, there is 
power ;" there is the power of the king himself. The Word of 
God is, then, the actual power of God. God is a consuming fire, 
and his "Word is as fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the 
rocks to pieces." It should not, therefore, be thought strange, 
that the Word of God and the Spirit of God are sometimes re- 
presented as equi-potent — as equivalent. Indeed, in all those 
passages that represent the Word and Spirit of God as being the 
causes of the same efiects, this equivalency is clearly implied. 
Hence, while Peter says, "By the Word of God, the heavens 
were of old," Job says, "By his Spirit he has garnished the 
heavens." 

Can any one imagine what power could have been superadded 
to the Word of God, that created light, that made the heavens 
and the earth, that made man upright or holy. If so, let him 
explain what that power could have been, which was dis- 
tinct from, and attached to, or that accompanied that word by 



310 CONSEQUENTS OP BAPTISM. 

which all things were created and made. Explain that accom- 
panying power, and I will explain the accompanying spiritual 
or supernatural power in the case of regeneration ! You cannot 
break a man down by physical power. You cannot soften and 
subdue the heart, as you grind a rock to pieces. A superadded 
power beyond motive, is inconceivable to any mind accustomed 
to think accurately upon spiritual and mental operations. The 
heart of man is to be subdued, melted, purified from all its 
hatred of God and enmity, by love ; by developments of grace, 
and not by any conceivable influence of a different nature. His 
love is poured out into our hearts, says Paul, by the Holy 
Spirit that is given to us. 

Men had better be careful how they speak of, and how they 
treat, the word of God. It will stand for ever. Till the heavens 
pass away, not one word shall fail. Mountains, by the wasting 
hand of time, may crumble down to dust — oceans may recede 
from their ancient limits — the heavens and the earth may pass 
away — but God's word shall never, never pass away. It is 
God's mighty moral lever, by which he raises man from earth 
to heaven. It is his almighty, awful, sublime, and gracious will, 
imbodied in such a medium as can enter the secret chambers 
of the human heart and conscience, and there stand up for God, 
and confound the sinner in his presence. The love of God is 
all enveloped in it, and that is the great secret of its charm — 
the mystery of its power to save. It is love, and love alone, 
that can reconcile the heart of man to God. Now love is a 
matter of intelligence — a matter that is to be told, heard, 
believed, and received by faith. "The power of God to salva- 
tion'' is the persuasive power of infinite and eternal love, and 
not the compulsive and subduing power of any force superadded 
to it. The promise of eternal life is itself a power of mighty 
magnitude. So are all the promises that enter into the Christian 
hope. These are almighty impulses, when understood and be- 
lieved upon the veracity and faithfulness of God. 

Arg. XIV. — There yet remains another argument, if I may 
so call it. It is, indeed, an induction of every case of conversion 
reported- in the inspired record. It is an account of the various 
influences of the Holy Spirit in adding members to the Christian 
church at its very commencement, and to the end of the apostolic 
history. Of these I will give a few specimens : — 

When the Holy Spirit fell from heaven on Pentecost, it fell 



CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 811 

only on "the one hundred and twenty," and not upon the pro- 
miscuous assembly. For the multitude, after the Spirit's de- 
scent, did still upbraid the disciples with drunkenness. Those 
who first received it that day, preached by it to the audience. 
The thousands who heard tvere pierced to the heart, and yet had 
not received the Spirit. They believed, and were in agony of 
fear and terror, but yet had not received the Spirit. They asked 
what they should do, and yet had not received it. Peter com- 
manded them to "Eepent and be baptized, every one of you, 
for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Spirit/^ Of course, then, they had not yet received that 
gift. They, however, gladly received his word, and were baptized. 
We have, then, the first three thousand converts regenerated by 
gladly receiving the Word and baptism. This is a strong fact 
for the first one in my fourteenth argument. 

The second fact of conversion is found Acts iv., and the ques- 
tion is, how were they regenerated ? We shall read the passage : 
*'Howbeit, many of them which heard the Word believed, and 
the number of the men was about j^z?e thousand J^ We are now 
morally certain that these five thousand were converted by the 
Spirit only through the Word. We have already eight thousand 
examples of our allegation, and not one instance of one converted 
without the Word. 

Our third exemplification is found Acts v. 14: " And believers 
were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and 
women." Women are here mentioned as well as men. We 
have, then, got multitudes of both sexes to add, in proof that the 
Spirit converted these, not without the Word, but by what they 
saw and heard. 

We shall find a fourth example. Acts viii. 5, 6, 12. Philip 
went to Samaria and preached Christ to them. *'And when 
they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the king- 
dom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus, they were baptized, 
both men and women." So the Samaritans were regenerated 
by the Holy Spirit through faith in the Word, which Philip 
preached. 

A fifth example is found in the eunuch. "If thou believest 
with all thy heart, thou may est." He said: "I believe that 
Jesus is the Son of God." Then he, too, was born of the water, 
and converted, not without the Word. 

Paul furnishes a sixth case. When he had fallen to the ground, 



313 CONSEQUENTS OF BAPTISM. 

he heard *'a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me — I am Jesus whom thou persecutest/^ His case is 
certainly one of indisputable certainty. He both saw, heard, 
and believed, and was baptized. 

To these I might add the case of Eneas, the citizens of Lydda 
and Saron, the assembly in the house of Dorcas, Cornelius, and 
his friends, Lydia and the jailer, Dionysius, Crispus, the Corin- 
thians and the Ephesians, &c. &c., as reported in the Acts of 
the Apostles. In not one of these cases did the Holy Spirit 
operate without the Word, but always through it. Of the Corin- 
thians, it was said, "And many of the Corinthians hearing, 
believed, and were baptized.^' This was true of all that were 
regenerated through the Spirit, during the ministry of the 
Apostles. Hence, to convert men by the accompanying in- 
fluence of the Holy Spirit, we must do what Paul commanded 
Timothy — " Preach the Word, be instant in season and out of 
season/' Then, no doubt, many will be enlightened, renewed, 
sanctified, and comforted by the presence and the power of the 
Holy Spirit. 



r 



BOOK SIXTH. 
I^eb(etoi3 of tfie ^t^hocatm of Infant fSapti^m* 



CHAPTER I. 

REVIEW OF BISHOP KENRICK's TREATISE. 

The Roman Bishop of Philadelphia, in 1843, published *^A 
Treatise on Baptism, with an Exhortation to receive it, translated 
from the works of St. Basil the Great, to which is added a Treatise 
on Confirmation,^' with the following motto: "Let a man so 
account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the ministers of 
the mysteries of God." 1 Cor. iv. 1. — "Philadelphia : M. Fithian, 
61, North Second Street: 1843." 

In reviewing the arguments and apologies for infant baptism 
which have fallen under our notice, we intended to place the most 
ancient and authoritative treatise on that subject first before our 
readers ; that, in reviewing its strong points, we should be relieved 
from the labour of reviewing more modern treatises, as they are 
generally but a reiteration or new modification of those which 
have preceded them. "We had then purposed to place the cele- 
brated work of Dr. Wall, or that of Peter Edwards, as first on 
our table. But on glancing over the works in my library on 
that subject, I found the work now before me, from the pen of 
a Roman Prelate ; and although of recent and contemporaneous 
origin, containing, as it does, the varied ecclesiastic learning of 
the mother and mistress of all Pedobaptist churches, so far as 
this rite is derived from them, I concluded that popular judg- 
ment and popular taste would give precedence to the Mother 
Church, and hear her first, with all the respect due to her great 
learning and hoary antiquity. 

The Bishops of Rome have a higher reputation for ecclesiastic 
learning than even the Protestant Prelates of England; whether 
deserved or not, I am not appointed an arbiter to decide ; but 

27 313 



314 REVIEWS OF THE 

think, at least, having been the foster parents of infant baptism, 
they are worthy of precedence. 

Now, although the work before us is of recent origin, we must 
regard it as better and even more learned than works of a 
higher antiquity; because, superadded to all that Roman 
Prelates formerly knew on that subject are the experience, 
reflections, and modern literature of our contemporary, Bishop 
Kenrick. 

We shall, therefore, hear him in his own language set forth 
the foundation on which he places the institution of infant 
baptism ; and, for the sake of future reference, arrange numeri- 
cally his arguments in proof of his position. First, then, we 
shall hear from him the doctrine of what he calls the Catholic 
Church — by which he does not mean the Greek Catholic nor the 
Protestant Catholic, but the Roman Catholic Church. "The 
Catholic Church holds that all infants are capable of baptism, 
independently of the piety or faith of their parents ; although 
the children of unbelievers are not to be baptized against the will 
of their parents, or in circumstances that expose the sacrament 
to manifest profanation.''"^ The Calvinistic or Presbyterian 
Church, or " Calvin and his followers, ground the practice of 
baptizing infants on the principle that the covenant of God is 
with the faithful and their posterity ; whence they restrict it to 
the children of believers ; who, being embraced in the covenant, 
have a right to receive the sign of association with the visible 
church.^'t See a discussion on Christian Baptism, by W. L. 
McCalla, Philadelphia, 1828. 

Concerning this Presbyterian foundation of infant baptism, 
founded on a covenant with the faithful and their posterity, the 
Bishop only says that it is "gratuitously supposed, and cannot 
be inferred from the ancient covenant with Abraham and his 
seed.'' To which I may add, that this hypothesis is suicidal to 
the Presbyterian doctrine of election, or, if not, to the church 
itself. She maintains that the Christian ordinances belong to 
the visible elect family or church of God, and to none else. 
Now, as she does not believe nor teach that the children of even 
believing parents -are, as such, the elect children of God, or re- 
generated in fact, or in form, or in profession, how can she dis- 
pense to them the ordinance of Christ, they not belonging in 

* Page 125. . . f Page 124. 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 315 

fact or profession to the elect of God? She never has been 
able, and, I predict, never will be able, to reconcile her doctrine 
of election and her doctrine of grace and the ordinances of grace 
with her assumption of the Abrahamic covenants ; for all the 
children of Abraham were an elect nation for the same purpose 
— according to the flesh ; and neither infants nor adults were 
required to believe in any doctrine of grace in order to circum- 
cision. They were circumcised because of fleshly relation, and 
not because of any spiritual relation to God or Christ. But we 
have to do at present with Bishop Kenrick, of the Roman Church 
in Philadelphia; and now we shall consider his proof of his 
assumption that all infants, as such, whether the oJBTspring of 
Turk, Jew, Infidel, or Christian, are alike the proper subjects 
of Christian baptism. His first is — 

Logical Argument, No, L — "All of us are by nature children 
of wrath, being stained by sin. Baptism is the laver wherein 
sin is washed away. It must, then, be applicable to infants.'^ 

Romantic logic ! A syllogism of four or five terms, and yet 
without a middle term ! Pope Pius IX., with all his infallibi- 
lity and liberality, could not consecrate it into a logical or ra- 
tional argument. It is as if one should argue — " All of us are 
by nature children of appetite, being impelled by hunger. The 
table is the place whereat hunger is driven away by those who 
can eat. The table, then, must be applicable to infants, whe- 
ther they can eat or not.^' This is even a better argument than 
the bishop's syllogism : for that assumes that baptism is, with- 
out any qualification whatever on the part of the subject, the 
laver wherein sin is washed away ! But no well-informed man 
does believe that. To make his argument stand out in all its 
logical grandeur, it would read thus: — "All of us are by na- 
ture children of wrath, being stained by sin. Baptism is the 
laver wherein the sin of living men is washed away. It must, 
then, be applicable to infants, living or dead.'' But we take 
more interest in his biblical than in his logical arguments. Of 
these the first is — 

Bible Argument, No, I. — "Who," says the bishop, "would ven- 
ture to deny that they can be saved of whom Christ has said, 
* Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid them not, for of 
guch is the kingdom of God !' " 

To this argument I have four objections : — 



316 REVIEWS OP THE 

1. It changes the subject of discussion. It is baptism, and not 
salvation, for which the bishop pleads ; and now he talks of sal- 
vation, and asks, " Who can deny that infants can be saved," 

2. These children were brought to the Messiah, neither for 
baptism nor for salvation, but for his blessing. 

3. They were brought to Jesus before Christian baptism was 
ordained; and, therefore, their case can have no logical nor 
scriptural connection with baptism. 

4. Jesus does not say that the kingdom of God is composed 
of little children; but of such as are, in some respects, like them. 

The English Hexapla, in all its versions, even including the 
Rheims, has "of such,'^ and not of them. The late Polyglot, 
containing eight languages, which I have just examined, also 
favours this version. The French version expresses the full 
sense of them all. It reads in Matt. xix. 13 ; Mark x. 14 ; Luke 
xviii. 15, Qui leur ressemblent. The kingdom of God is of those 
who resemble them. There is not, then, a single version of the 
New Testament, in. either Bagster's Hexapla, or in Bagster's 
recent splendid Polyglot Bible, containing the Greek, Hebrew, 
Latin, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish approved 
versions, that justifies the bishop^s gloss. 

But, strange to tell, while the bishop makes original sin at 
one time a reason for infant baptism, he quotes with approba- 
tion the Abbot of Cluney, who wrote against Peter de Bruis of 
the twelfth century, pleading the innocence of children as a 
reason why they should certainly be baptized. The abbot asks, 
"How will you any longer repel innocence from Christ f Will 
you snatch children from Christ who embraces children V Thus 
the bishop, in his logical argument, will have original sin, and 
now will have their innocence a passport to Christian baptism ! 
Surely, the legs of the lame are unequal I 

A Second Logical Argument. — The bishop draws his second 
logical argument from "all scriptural texts which speak of bap- 
tism as a washing, a renovation of the Holy Spirit.'^ He says, 
"All such texts warrant the baptism of infants" — because, "they 
must be washed in the blood of the Lamb from the hereditary 
defilement." They, therefore, come forth from the font purified, 
justified, sanctified, having no spot or wrinkle, or any such 
thing. This is another new variety of the syllogism. If this 
be proof, I know not what could not be proved by putting a 
therefore after any three assertions. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 317 

Assertion 1. All scriptural texts that speak of the washing of 
regeneration, warrant the baptism of infants. 

Assertion 2. Because they must be washed in the blood of the 
Lamb from hereditary defilement. 

Assertion 3. Therefore, they come forth from the font puri- 
fied, justified, sanctified, having no spot, wrinkle, or any such 
thing. 

This is another Eomantio syllogism, and would be univer- 
sally smiled at, were it not that it comes from a Koman bishop 
in Philadelphia. I have only to say, that it assumes that a few 
drops of water from the finger of priest or layman, (for Rome 
admits of lay baptism^) pronounced with the name of "the Tri- 
nity,'' is equal to the blood of Christ — nay, more than equal to 
the blood of Christ : for that blood, in its justifying power, re- 
quires faith on the part of the subject ; but water is so much 
more efficacious that it requires no faith whatever on the part 
of the subject of infant justification and purification. 

Bishop Kenrick is, in some respects, a candid man ; and, 
therefore, he reasons rather awkwardly ; for, at one time his 
candour must be sacrificed to his position ; at another time, his 
position to his candour. I will give two very remarkable proofs 
of his candour : — 1st. Contrary to all my antagonists, he ad- 
mits that infant baptism is not commanded in the commission, 
and cannot be legitimately inferred from it — "Go, convert the 
nations, baptizing them,'^ &c. Of both versions of the commis- 
sion, by Matthew and Mark, he observes, "Whether infants 
should be baptized cannot be inferred with certainty from the 
words of the commission.^^ He then proceeds to answer the 
question, " Why, then, baptize them, if the commission do not 
authorize it?^^ He also repudiates the argument from circum- 
cision, and will not use it, as being unworthy of the Apostles 
to be left to guess at what they should do while acting under a 
commission from the Lord. We shall hear him on both these 
points : — 

"But^ then, it may be asked. On what authority can they be 
baptized ? If the commission do not regard them, they are ne- 
cessarily beyond its reach, and the attempt to baptize is an un- 
authorized measure. I care not to answer with some that the 
term rendered * teach' may be understood of making disciples, 
and initiating into Christ. Neither shall I allege, as a^natter 
of mere inference, the divine command that each male infant, 

27* 



818 REVIEWS OF THE 

on the eighth day after his birth, should be circumcised, and 
thus incorporated with the people of God : whence, it is said, 
the Apostles must have understood that infants should be ad- 
missible to the Christian rite which supersedes circumcision, es- 
pecially inasmuch as the children of proselytes are said to have 
been washed with water, when their parents were admitted to Jew- 
ish privileges. I do not at all allow that the Apostles were left 
to guess their Master's will from any circumstance; but I main- 
tain that they were instructed by Him in the sacred functions 
entrusted to them, and were enlightened by the Holy Spirit that 
they might not err. The divine ordinance, on this point, must 
be learned from their teaching and their acts, as recorded in 
Scripture, or, in the want of decisive evidence of this sort, from 
the teaching and practice of the church which they founded.'' 

This is a very liberal and valuable surrender. Half of our 
treatises in favour of infant baptism are made up of assumptions 
connected with the identity of covenants, seals, and churches. 
Presbyterians, of every school, lay great stress on infant circum- 
cision as a warrant for infant baptism. But Bishop Kenrick, 
not sworn to Calvinism, is more enlarged in his views of this 
ancient institution. He, therefore, will not send the twelve 
Apostles, with Christ's commission in their hands, a-begging for 
instruction to Abraham, Moses, or the Jews, on the subject of 
preaching the gospel and baptizing. He intimates a very evi- 
dent disagreement between his views and those of all the cham- 
pions of the infant rite with whom I have wrestled on the 
subjects of both circumcision and the commission. He even 
inculpates either the learning or the fidelity of Rosenmuller, on 
the word matheteusate, found in Matt, xxviii., which means, says 
he, to make disciples. Rosenmuller contends that matJieteusate 
may be understood of taking into the number of followers of 
Christ infants, who are afterwards to be instructed. This the 
Roman bishop repudiates, saying, "I do not, however, choose to 
rely on this verbal criticism, as the most obvious meaning of the 
term is to instruct effectually, so as to bring over to the number 
of disciples and believers those who were strangers to the truth. 
It is used of a scribe thoroughly instructed in heavenly truth, 
matheteutheis, Matt. viii. 52, and of Joseph of Arimathea, who 
was instructed by our Divine Master, and believed in him ; 
Matt, xxviii. 57. Protestant writers have been led to forced 
explanations of words of Scripture to sustain the principle 
that all things necessary for salvation can be proved from if 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 319 

^TJpon this very just and necessary surrender of the commission, 
our learned prelate takes occasion to descant upon the value of 
tradition, and very candidly gives up the whole scriptural argu- 
ment for infant baptism, as imperfect and unsatisfactory. 

When. any one, on the Pedobaptist ground, tells me that the 
Sacred Scriptures, on this point, are not ^Hhoroughly conclusive,'* 
I will concur with him in another point, which the bishop him- 
self seems also to admit, viz. that the baptizing of infants can- 
not be ^^satisfactorily vindicated J' Here, then, the door is 
opened for tradition. I am sorry to say that, in this respect, 
the bishop displays more honesty than some Protestant Pedo- 
baptists : for he at once admits both the need and the import- 
ance of tradition, and openly quotes, applies, and confides in 
it ; whereas, the Protestants, many of them at least, verbally 
denounce and abjure tradition ; and yet, after all, really build 
on it. Of this we shall, perhaps, give some proofs hereafter, as 
we have, alas ! too many of them. We shall only farther quote 
this passage, and allow it to speak for itself; — 

"Without the aid of tradition, the practice of baptizing in- 
fants cannot be satisfactorily vindicated, the scriptural proofs 
on this point not being thoroughly conclusive : yet we do not, 
on this account, neglect the arguments which it furnishes, and 
which have considerable force.'' 

But though unable to find any rational or scriptural authority 
in circumcision or in the commission for infant baptism, the 
bishop is resolved, if possible, to maintain it ; and seems with 
fresh spirit to appeal to the households baptized by the Apos- 
tles. We shall, then, hear him on his second scriptural argu- 
ment; — 

"We are challenged to show that the Apostles baptized in- 
fants. Had we a detailed enumeration of their ministerial acts, 
the challenge would be reasonable ; but the book styled their 
Acts contains only some of the chief facts which marked the 
origin and proved the divine authority of the Christian church. 
Yet even there it is said that Lydia * was baptized and her house- 
hold,' and the jailer * was baptized and presently all his family ;' 
and St. Paul testifies that he * baptized also the household of Ste- 
phanas.' It cannot indeed be proved that infants were in these 
families ; but the presumption is that there were, and the gene- 
ral expressions naturally lead us to consider the baptism of all 
the children as following the conversion of the parent." 



820 REVIEWS OF THE 

Our resolute champion for the infant rite, in his self-respect 
and candour, is, it appears, in the end of his enumeration of 
households baptized, constrained to give up his own argument 
deduced from them, and to acknowledge that an infant cannot 
be found in any one of them. So these, too, are abandoned, and 
his dernier resort is to tradition — ecclesiastic tradition. He, of 
course, desires to find in the first century or second century some 
case that would favour the idea. Beginning with Justin Mar- 
tyr, who flourished about the middle of it, and then proceeding 
to Irenaeus, who flourished at the end of it, he cannot find a clear 
allusion to it, much less a positive proof of it ; for infafit bap- 
tism is not so much as named in any fragment of ancient tradi- 
tion during the first and second centuries. No living man can 
find any allusion to it, or account of it, till in the third century, 
and even then there is little certain and less indicative that it 
had obtained in the Christian church so called. 

Positive ordinances demand positive proof as certain as divine 
ordinances require the proof of divine authority. But neither 
he nor any other man can, from the oracles of God, or from 
ecclesiastical history, produce any direct, positive proof, human 
or divine, for infant baptism during the first two hundred years 
of the Christian age. We shall hear the Prelate on this subject, 
and then lay him on our shelf j?ro tempore : — 

" The ancient practice of baptizing infants, of which the origin 
at any period subsequent to the apostolic age cannot be pointed 
out, is the strongest presumptive evidence of their practice. 

** St. Justin the Martyr speaks of ^ many persons of both 
sexes, sixty or seventy years old, who from childhood had been 
devoted to Christ, and persevered in virginity unto that age.' 
Although the terms employed do not express their baptism in 
infancy, they certainly afibrd ground for believing it, for their 
early instruction in the doctrines of Christ, and their enrolment 
among his disciples, are easily understood on this hypothesis.^' 

No positive or decisive evidence, but air-built, conjectural, and 
far-fetched speculations as yet appear ; and doubtless if any 
man could find any thing better, a Roman bishop might ration- 
ally be expected to have it in his possession. Meantime, we are 
at present engaged with the Bible evidence and arguments de- 
ducible from the Christian Scriptures ; and having found, in the 
judgment of the bishop, " no positive or satisfactory proof,^' 
nothing ^'thoroughly conclusive/' either in circumcision, the 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 821 

commission, or in household baptism — nothing in the form of 
precept, example, or precedent, in any portion of the canonical 
Scriptures, we shall next hear one of his neighbours, — 

Dr. Miller of Princeton, " Professor of Ecclesiastical History 
and Church Government, in the Theological Seminary at Prince- 
ton. Philadelphia, 1835 : published by J. Whetham.'^ 

We prefer Miller to any other American, or even English 
writer, on this subject, because of his opportunities and position 
in society, and because his calling and profession make it his 
duty to be in possession of all that is written or of value upon 
the subject. It will, therefore, exempt me from the necessity of 
reviewing the sources whence he has derived his arguments — 
such as Wall, Edwards, Walker, Williams, Parsons, Evans, 
Wardlaw, Moore, Dwight, &c., &c., and also his own reasonings 
and reflections on all the premises. The doctor, too, is as vene- 
rable for his years as for his learning ; and after him we shall 
find little to interest us in other writers, though courtesy and 
popular opinion may require us to notice some of them. 

Dr. Miller had the subject long before his mind, and has 
greatly concentrated the arguments commonly used, besides 
adding his own profound speculations on the premises. We 
shall, therefore, hear him with attention, examine him with care, 
and object to his views with all becoming candour and respect. 
I have only farther to premise a single regret as to the doctor's 
style of treating the subject. It is not that his style is too ob- 
scure, diffuse, or inelegant ; but because it is too dogmatical, 
positive, and somewhat ex-catJiedral, 

I am sorry to have to except to the statement of the case in 
issue, on the very opening of his first discourse on the direct 
evidence in favour ofirifant baptism. He may, indeed, without 
any evil intention, have done this ; but it is peculiarly unfor- 
tunate, for himself and his reader, who are likely to be deceived 
by the error and seduced into much false, or, at least, irrelevant 
reasoning. His statement is in the following words : — *' It is well 
known that there is a large and respectable body of professing 
Christians among us, who believe and confidently assert that 
baptism ought to be confined to adults ; who insist that when 
professing Christians bring their infant offspring and dedicate 
them to God, and receive for them the washing of sacramental 
water in the name of the Father, &c., &c., they entirely pervert 



322 REVIEWS OP THE 

and misapply an important Christian ordinance/'^ I have 
placed certain words in this quotation in italics, that the reader 
may pause and reflect upon them, and ask himself^ Is this the 
true statement of the controversy? We are free to confess that it 
is not a true statement of the case. There is no denomination 
of Baptists in Christendom, known to me, that teaches that bap- 
tism ought to be confined to adults, or that minors, or even 
young children, should be debarred from it. It is not a question 
about adults and minors, adults or infants. I have baptized 
many infants in law and young children in years, and so I pre- 
sume have many others technically called Immersionists or Bap- 
tists. Dr. Miller makes it a question of years — ^with us, it is a 
question oi faith. It is not about nonage or adult age, but about 
intelligence and belief. He pleads for a baptism without faith 
in the subject, without the power to make a profession of it. 
We argue for a baptism preceded by a profession of faith on the 
part of the subject. This is the real issue — the one assumed by 
him is a false issue. 

The doctor's statement is also characterized by unscriptural 
terms — such as " washing of sacramental water,'^ ** dedicate our 
infant offspring.^' How can that be *' sacramental water'' to 
one ignorant of a sacrament ? How is baptism a sacrament ? 
Whence came these barbarous terms ? And how can one be 
washed with a dewdrop on the face, or with a moistened finger? 
Does not the doctor wholly misconceive the ordinance of dedi- 
cation ? Neither circumcision among Jews, nor baptism among 
Christians, was, under any dispensation, regarded or called 
*' dedicationJ^ Neither dedicate nor dedication, though often oc- 
curring in the Bible, is once found in the sacred Scriptures ap- 
plied to persons, but always to things. Can parents dedicate 
their children to the Lord ? In what way ? By what au- 
thority? 

The dedication of children as soon as born, is of equal au- 
thority with the Koman custom of making saints of very great 
sinners so soon after their death as their faults are forgotten. 
Can the ceremony of giving a name to a child change its posi- 
tion to God, his church, or the human race ? And if so, by 
what authority ? 

" We are bound,'' says the doctor, " to bring our infant seed 

* Page 14. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 323 

in the arms of faith and love, and present them before the Lord, 
in that ordinance which is at once a seal of God's covenant with 
his people.'^* 

If infant baptism or affusion be a seal of a covenant, where is 
it so stated, and what is the covenant into which children enter, 
and what does baptism seal to them ? These are questions which 
Dr. Miller, I am sure, never can answer with any rational or 
scriptural authority. God af&xes no seal to blank covenants, 
nor to any covenant he does not make good. What do the in- 
fant seed of Pedobaptists show or possess of covenanted mercies 
not enjoyed by others ? 

But the doctor says, "We have no doubt that the visible 
churcV [who ever saw an invisible church ?] *4s made up not 
only of those who personally profess the true religion, but also 
of their children.'^t His reasons for his faith are — 1st. ^^ Be- 
cause in all JeTiovaVs covenants with his professing people, from 
the earliest ages and states of society, their infant seed have been 
included J' Page 15. 

Query — Are they born into it, or circumcised into it, or baptized 
into it? If they are born into it, then natural birth is the door into 
both the church and the world. They enter both at once. But if 
circumcision was the door, or baptism the door, then Adam, Abel, 
Enoch, Noah, Melchisedec, nor any saint, for two thousand and 
eighty-three years, ever got into the church. The doctor's hypo- 
thesis is a lusus naturce, or a lusus mentis, or a rank delusion. 
Circumcision was the door into the church, or it was not. If 
the door into the church, then no one entered it^for two thou- 
sand and eighty-three years. If it was not, then baptism being, 
according to the doctor, its substitute, is not the door. The 
doctor's logic or theology must fail, or, perhaps, both, to extri- 
cate him out of this dilemma. 

The covenants made with Adam, Noah, and one of those made 
with Abraham, had respect to their whole seed, good and bad. 
But no such covenant could, by any possibility, be an ecclesiastic 
one, because an ecclesiastic covenant, as the term imports, re- 
spects those selected, or called out ; and a covenant that takes 
all a man's seed, as did that with Adam, Noah, and the covenant 
of circumcision made with Abraham twenty-four years after the 
*^ covenant concerning Christ," never could be a church cove- 

* Page 15. t Ibid. 



324 REVIEWS or the 

nant. Hence the facts of the Bible, and its technical terms, 
alike with common sens^, excommunicate the doctor's reason- 
ings beyond the pale of reason and philosophy. 

But there is another radical aberration in the Doctor's mind, 
as it appears to me, on the subject of " covenants made with 
professing people.'^ If the covenant be made with professing 
people as such, then they can have no issue, no covenanted issue, 
I mean, but a professing issue. Hence the covenant with Abra-. 
ham concerning his spiritual seed — a covenant made with him 
as a spiritual and not as a natural father, twenty-four years 
before the covenant in the flesh, recognises no children but 
those of faith: so Paul taught me to reason when he said — " If 
you be Ckrisfs,'^ you Jews or Gentiles, "then are youAbror 
Thames seed, and heirs according to the covenant," alias, promise. 
This settles the matter, as it appears to me, till the day of judg- 
ment. Now, unless Dr. Miller can show that whether Christ's 
or not, Jews are the seed of Abraham according to the covenant 
before confirmed [eis Christon,) in reference to Christ, then he 
must acknowledge that this his fundamental hypothesis is but 
a brilliant fancy, a splendid sophism, playing round the galleries 
of the imagination, but entering not into the sanctuary of reason 
and sacred truth. 

The second reason assigned in proof that the visible church 
is made up of professors and their fleshly offspring, is — "The 
close and endearing connection between parents and children,^' 
— " a strong argument in favour of the church membership of 
the infant seed of believers." " Can it be, my dear friends,^' 
says the doctor, in arguing this case, " that when the stem is 
in the church, the branch is out of it !" If this be not car- 
nalizing the church of Christ, I ask what would constitute that 
offence against him who said — "unless a man be born again," 
" born of water and of Spirit," " born from above," he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God. "If any man be in Christ ho 
is a new creature." If the stem be in the church, that is, the 
flesh of the parents, then the branch from the flesh must also 
be in it. But if the stem be the spirit or new man, then the 
branch cannot be the flesh of the child, but its spirit. Can any 
one imagine a greater confusion of ideas in the mind of a learned 
Bage, than appears in such reasonings. It is the perversity of 
a fallacious and unscriptural system that compels a literary 
gentleman, a learned father in the Presbyterial Israel, to speak 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 825 

such incongruous things. Again, if "the close and endearing 
connection" between parents and children be a strong argument 
that infants should be baptized and brought in through natural 
affection for them ; would it not be quite as good logic to argue 
as follows? — "The close and endearing connection" between 
husband and wife, being one flesh, "is a strong argument in 
favour of the church membership of the wife of a Christian 
husband." And, in the same bold style of proof, we would ask — 
Can it be, my dear friends, that when the head is in the church, 
the body should be out of it? And is not "the husband the 
head over his wife as Christ is the head of the church?" If Mr. 
Miller's second argument be a sound one, it will behove that, 
owing to the "close and endearing connection between husbands 
and wives," when the husband or the wife is in the church, th« 
other party ought to be a church member also. If Mr. Miller 
repudiates this view, he repudiates his own reasoning. 

In the present essay, we have not space to respond to the other 
reasons which Dr. Miller alleges in proof of his favourite dogma. 
We must reserve the remainder of them for another tract. The 
elaborate researches and efforts on the part of those learned 
advocates of this ancient tradition, furnish very strong argur 
ments against their position. They affirm, in all their standards, 
that "baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament and 
ordained by Jesus Christ" himself. Why, then, in the face of 
this very just and correct annunciation of their faith, go to 
Moses and Abraham to find a foundation for an ordinance of 
Jesus Christ? Are solemn Christian ordinances to be established 
by remote abstract and philosophical reasonings, instead of 
positive precepts? Positive institutions require positive enact* 
ments, and cannot he established by mere inferential reasonings. 
This is an oracle as ancient as those of sacrifice, the altar, and 
the priest. Could any one have introduced circumcision by in- 
ferential reasoning, or change circumcision from blood to water, 
from cutting the flesh to wetting the face? He that believes 
this will not find it difficult to believe in transubstantiation or 
any other metamorphosis of Patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian 
institutions. 



326 REVIEWS OP THE 



CHAPTER II. 

REVIEW OF DR. MILLER OF PRINCETON. 

Two of Dr. Miller's reasons in favour of a mixed church — a 
church composed of professors and non-professors — of regenerate 
and unregenerate persons — of voluntary and involuntary mem- 
bers, have been considered and shown to be naked assumptions, 
without any show of scriptural evidence or authority. "We shall 
now examine his other reasons for infant church membership. 

His third reason is — ^' The actual and acknowledged cJiurch 
membership of infants under the Old Testament economy, is a de- 
cisive index of the Divine will in regard to this matter J' Now, on 
his own showing, the non actual and unacknowledged church 
membership of infants under the Old Testament economy, would 
be a decisive index of the Divine will in regard to this matter. 
Dividing, then, the Old Testament economy into four thousand 
years from Adam to Christ, we have two periods of a very dif- 
ferent character. There is a period of 2100 years from Adam 
to the covenant of circumcision, during which time there was 
not an indication of infant church membership by any kind of 
right, title, or visible recognition whatever. There was, indeed, 
a period of about 1490 years, in which there was a national in- 
stitution — in which was recognised a male infant membership, 
and other hereditary honours. The mitre, sceptre, and the 
tribeship honours were alike hereditary in this " Jewish national 
church state." By what new species of logic and theology he 
makes an Old Testament church of four thousand years standing 
a model of a Christian church we know not, especially as more 
than half that time there was no infant membership whatever ; 
and during the remainder of it, only a male infant right in a 
national institution. But why argue for one portion of its male 
hereditary rights, and oppose another part of it ? Why contend 
for male infant membership, and not for male infant rights to 
the priesthood and the throne ? Why make the Old Testament 
national institution a reason for infant church membership, and 
not also for church rulers, priests, and kings? Did not this 
Old Testament church birthright make of certain males, accord- 
ing to tribes and families, priests and kings, as well as citizens? 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 327 

And did it not equally exclude females from them all ? If there 
be reason, or truth, or propriety in his assumptions. Professor 
Miller ought to have his sons fill his chair theological and his 
pulpit ministerial, in virtue of his own flesh ; and also exclude 
his infant daughters from membership in the church, because 
girls, under Moses, had no national birthrights to sealing ordi- 
nances! What an unenviable intellectual discrimination do 
these veteran defenders of Papal traditions evince in the defence 
of infant church membership ! 

But our learned professor affords many other such instances 
of his own peculiar logic. In the very same chapter, in proof 
that circumcision sealed to infants spiritual blessings, he alleges 
that " circumcision is expressly declared, by the inspired Apostle, 
to have been a seal of the righteousness of faith." Kom. iv. 11. 

Our logical text-books do not afford a more complete illustra- 
tion of the ^^fallacia acddentisj" or of the error of affirming a 
general or a universal truth from an accidental or particular 
case, than does our zealous Pedobaptist present to the literary 
world in his quotation of Rom. iv. 11. Paul, in this place, says 
of Abraham that "he received the sign of circumcision, a seal 
of the righteousness of the faith which he had before he was 
circumcised." From which singular and remarkable case. Dr. 
Miller infers that circumcision was the seal of the righteousness 
of faith to infants that have no faith ! If he does not argue this, 
I ask what does he argue? — ! Can an infant, male or female, 
have a rigliieousness of faith, without having faith? — ! Must 
not a human being have faith before he can have its righteous- 
ness? I would ask, "Was circumcision to Ishmael, or to the 
babe Isaac, what it was to Abraham, who had believed God 
many years before either of them was born? But Paul calls 
circumcision the sign and a seal — not the seal. It was to all 
the circumcised infants a sign in their flesh that they were of 
the blood of Abraham ; but not to any one of them a sign of 
any faith, or righteousness of faith — for they had neither on the 
eighth day. Were we allowed to suspicion a design to mislead, 
Dr. Miller affords ample means of making out a very strong case 
from the liberty which he here takes with the sacred text. He 
entirely changes the meaning of the passage as read in the com- 
mon New Testament and in the original, by leaving out the 
definite article before faith, and again by lopping off an entire 
member of the sentence defining the word faith in PauFs use 



328 REVIEWS OP THE 

of it here. This will aj^pear to all by quoting Paul's own words, 
and placing them in contrast with the words that Dr. Miller 
puts into Paul's mouth. PauFs words are — *'He received the 
sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith 
whi(?h he had being yet uncircumcised.'' But Dr. Miller makes 
Paul say, "He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the 
righteousness of faith.'' The doctor makes circumcision in all 
cases a seal of the righteousness of faith ; while Paul makes it 
only a seal of the righteousness of that faith possessed long 
before the date of the covenant of circumcision. Now I will 
not, in charity, call this a wilful handling of the word of God 
deceitfully; but will rather say it is a proof of the perversity of 
prejudice, or of the blindness sometimes accompanying long 
cherished errors. 

But what makes this sophism still more unpardonable is the 
fact, that Paul, in commenting on the case, alleges that it was 
designed for a very special purpose ; viz. to indicate that in the 
gospel age Gentiles without circumcision should equally enjoy 
with the circumcised all the blessings of the Christian institu- 
tion ; and, therefore, his having the righteousness of faith before 
circumcision, constitutes him the "father of all them that be- 
lieve, though they be not circumcised ;'' and also, " the father 
of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, 
but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abra- 
ham which he had while uncircumcised.'' This explanation of 
a seal of the righteousness of the faith of Abraham, possessed 
twenty-four years before he was circumcised, leaves not the sha- 
dow of an excuse for any man of letters making that use of it 
probably adopted, rather than fabricated, by Professor Miller. 

His fourth reason for infant membership is no better than his 
third. It is, indeed, less excusable, because it adds to its logi- 
cal infirmities a gratuitous assertion concerning a concession 
which it cannot prove. It reads thus : — " As the infant seed 
of the people of God are acknowledged, on all hands, to have 
been members of the church equally with their parents, under 
the Old Testament dispensation, so it is equally certain that the 
Church of God is the same in substance now that it was then.'' 
They are not "acknowledged on all hands to have been mem- 
bers of any church'' for two thousand one hundred years ; and 
not members of a Church of God, unless a nation he a church; 
and not then, unless male infants mean " the infant seed of the 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 329 

people of God/^ Now, as these are not certain — nay, not true — 
from his own words, this argument is a logical fallacy. His 
words are, "jR is equally certain that the church of God is the 
same in substance now as thenJ' That is — It is equally certain 
as that which is wholly uncertain — nay, contrary to the most 
express testimony* 

The evidence that the Jewish nation and the Christian church 
are not identically one and the same in substance, spirit, or form, 
is, to an unprejudiced mind, most copious, clear, and irrefraga- 
ble. I will give a few proofs of it by stating a few facts: — 

1. The house that Moses built and the house that Christ built are 
spoken of as two, and not as one and the same, Paul to the He- 
brews, chap, iii., "Moses was faithful as a testimony of things to 
be spoken'' in the gospel age — faithful in God's house; but 
"Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we (Chris- 
tians) are." Now, as Moses was born before he built God's 
house, so the Messiah was born before he built his own house. 
They are, then, two houses, and not one and the same. 

2. God promised, by Isaiah, chap, xxviii. 16, that he would 
build a new house, or church, and himself lay the foundation 
of it. " Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation stone, a tried 
stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation^ Of course, 
Moses had not laid even the foundation of the New Institution, 
or Christian temple. 

3. Daniel, chap, vii., also declares that, in the days of the 
Roman Caesars, "the God of heaven would set up a kingdom,^' 
which would survive "all the kingdoms of the world, and stand 
for ever." Surely, that was not the Jewish church. It had 
been set up long before. 

4. Dr. Miller will have the Jewish covenant and the Christian 
covenant the same ; whereas, God promised a new covenant, and 
also told the Jews by Ezekiel, chap. xvi. 61, that he would 
make a new covenant, and add, to a portion of the Jews, the 
Gentiles, and form a new community ; but, says he, "iVb^ by thy 
covenant;^' yet Dr. Miller afi&rmsby one "and the same precious 
covenant." He makes Jesus Christ the head of the Jewish 
church; for, with him, the Jewish nation and the Christian 
church are identical throughout. "The same head, the same 
precious covenant, the same great spiritual design, the same 
atoning blood, the same sanctifying Spirit." Such are his dog- 
mata; and his illustration is, "It is not more certain that a man 

28* 



8SQ REVIEWS OF THE 

arrived at mature age is the same individual that he was when 
an infant in his mother's lap, than it is that the church, in the 
plenitude of her light and privileges, after the coming of Christ, 
is the same church which, many centuries before, though with 
a much smaller amount of light and privilege ; yet, as we are 
expressly told in the New Testament, (Acts vii. 28,) enjoyed 
the presence and guidance of his Divine Head in the wilder- 
ness/' P. 19. The illustration is much better than the proof. 
It is certain that the infant and the full-grown man are identi- 
cally the same person ; for, of this, consciousness is the highest 
proof. But has the Christian church this consciousness ? Nay ; 
Pr. Miller gives that up ; and proves his allegata by simply 
affirming here, that the Christian church is identically the Jew- 
ish church, full-grown ; because the Jewish church enjoyed, ac- 
cording to Stephen, "the presence and guidance of her Divine 
Head.'' Suppose it should be said, for illustration of this splen- 
did logic, that George Washington was both the head of the 
American army and afterwards the head of the American na- 
tion — that, therefore, the American army, and the American 
nation were identically one and the same institution or body 
corporate; what would our political doctors say? Yet, just 
such a logician is this venerable theological professor of Prince- 
ton. 

To illustrate or argue the identity, the doctor proceeds into 
the Galatians, and brings up the fourth chapter to sustain his 
notion of identity. Because an heir, when a minor, is under a 
master as much as a servant, therefore the Jewish community 
and the Christian community are identically one church. Now, 
the Apostle's own argument in that chapter most expressly 
compares the Jewish covenant and people to Hagar and Ish- 
mael, and the Christian covenant and people to Sarah and 
Isaac — saying, that the two women represent two covenants, or 
constitutions, and that the two sons represent tivo distinct com- 
munities — the Jews and the Christians. The difference between 
the Jewish community and the Christian institution was never 
more circumstantially drawn by the Apostle Paul, or any one 
else, than in this graphic allegory. Here is the slave Hagar 
and her bond-son, and here is the free Sarah and her free-born 
son. Here are the Jews, born after the flesh, and the Chris- 
tians, after the Spirit. The Jewish institution, in the birth of 
its members, differed nothing from England or the United 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 331 

States — the door into both was flesh, blood, or natural birth ; 
but, into Christ's church none can enter, unless, like Isaac, they 
are supernaturally born, or born after the Spirit. So the Apos- 
tle argues : ** Cast out the bond-woman Hagar and her son Ish- 
mael — both the old covenant and those born under it ; for the 
son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the son of the free 
woman.'' Dr. Miller says they are identically the same, and do 
inherit the same relation. But Paul differs from the doctor ; 
averring, *'So we, brethren, are not children of the bondwoman" 
— of the Jewish covenant ; for these two women represent the 
two covenants; but we Christians are "children of the free- 
woman," or new covenant. 

It will not help the doctor, to assume that the dispensations 
are two and the covenants one, since Paul makes two covenants. 
Indeed, this whole hypothesis of two dispensations of one cove- 
nant, is but dust and ashes thrown by the theological doctors 
into the eyes of their too credulous devotees. Two dispensa- 
tions of religion change membership and privileges just as much 
as two covenants. • A covenant is a dispensation. There is, 
therefore, just as much sound sense as sound theology in speak- 
ing of two dispensations of one dispensation, as in speaking of 
two dispensations of one covenant. It is learned nonsense. A 
modest theologian would, methinks, be satisfied with the fact 
that the Saviour preached a new birth as essential to admission 
into the Christian church or reign of Heaven. The Jews were 
born of flesh, of blood, and of the will of man ; but not of God. 
But the Messiah, who came to set up a new kingdom, preached 
a new doctrine, and gave, only to those who received him, the 
power or privilege to become the children of God. And this, we 
are expressly told, cut off all the sons of the flesh : for, only " to 
those who received him, who were born not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, gave he 
privilege to become the children of God," or members of his 
church. Hence, to Nicodemus, he affirmed, "Except a man 
be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 

-But our learned Dr. Miller is full of proof-texts. That the 
Jewish church and the Christian are identically one and the 
same institution, he alleges from the dislocated joint of an 
apostolic argument, Heb. iv. 2, "For unto us was the gospel 
preached as well as unto them :" that is, in the doctor's vision, 
equivalent to saying, the same gospel was preached unto the 



332 REVIEWS OF THE 

Jews that has been preached to us. Suppose that were the 
fact ; would that make us Jews, or them Christians ? 1 It cer- 
tainly, on the doctor's showing, has as much power to make 
Gentiles Jews as Jews Christians ! But few men, in this our 
day of learned criticism, would have the courage to make such 
a quotation : for all the learning of the age is on the side of 
reading the passage, *'For glad tidings of a rest to come are 
preached to us Christians, as were glad tidings of a rest (in 
Canaan) preached to them ;" but the good tidings of a rest in 
Canaan preached to them did not profit them, (since but two 
men of the whole nation entered into that rest,) because of not 
believing the glad tidings concerning it announced to them. So 
evident is this the contextual import of the passage, that chil- 
dren in our Sunday-schools, equally with the most learned of 
our critics, so understand it. Surely, Dr. Miller has survived 
his generation 1 

This can only be excelled by Dr. Miller himself. The Jewish 
church ate the manna and drank the mystic rock, and are a gos- 
pel church because, says the doctor, they 'are builded on the 
same foundation — the Apostles and Prophets. Moses alone 
founded the Jewish church. It is only at this Princeton Obser- 
vatory, through some new ecclesiastic telescope, that the Pro- 
phets and Apostles were seen along with Moses when he founded 
the church of Christ in the wilderness of Sin ! ! 

But, finally, the doctor completes his climax by the parable of 
the Good Olive Tree, Eom. xi. The case is this : Jeremiah 
(chap, xvi.) in allusion to the past history of the nation, says, 
" The Lord called thy name a green olive-tree, fair and of goodly 
fruit.'' Paul to the Romans applies this figure, and reminds 
some Gentile brethren, compared to the branches of a wild olive, 
that they had been grafted into the good olive-tree and made to 
partake of its root and fatness. Some of the natural branches 
of this olive-tree had been broken off, and they were grafted in 
their place. 

That we may not pervert or misapply this allegory, it is im- 
portant to keep the facts on which it is founded clearly before 
our minds. Of these, the following are chief: — 

1. "To the Jews pertained the adoption^ and the glory, and the 
covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and 
ihQ promises, whose are the fathers, and of ivhom, as to the flesh, 
Christ came,^^ But Christ's church is not found in the inventory 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 833 

of their peculiar rights, honors, and privileges. They had the 
adoption and the Shekinah. They were the only people that 
God acknowledged nationally, and among whom he pitched 
his tent and held his abode. The covenants guarantying bless- 
ings to the human race, and of making them nationally accord- 
ing to the flesh a peculiar people, were in their hands. To them 
the law of circumcision was given. The typical worship of the 
only living and true God was theirs. The promises spiritual 
and eternal were given to them for the benefit of the human 
race. This, indeed, was a chief blessing ; for Paul admits their 
chief advantage to have been, that "^o them were committed the 
OT^acles of GodP The three great fathers, Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, in whom God promised to bless all the families of 
the earth, were their natural progenitors. Hence the Messiah 
himself was the natural son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with 
some fifty-two other progenitors : for, according to Luke, Jesus 
was the fifty-sixth person in descent from Abraham. But it is 
nowhere said that to them pertained the church or believing 
family of the only living and true God. This is assumed by all 
those who make the Jewish nation and the Christian church 
identical. There was a people of God before Abraham, and after 
Abraham they did not derive their blood from him. Abraham, 
that he might be a great father, was made the father of two 
raci3S of men— a natural and a spiritual progeny. The history 
of Sarah and Hagar and their two sons stereotypes this for ever. 
Now for almost two thousand years these two races were chiefly 
found in one nation. This was the good Olive Tree. Especially 
was it good while the whole nation, as such, kept pure the only 
true worship of one only living and true God. But, be it em- 
phatically said, that this was predicted to continue so only till 
the Messiah should come. For the patriarch Jacob, when dying, 
said of Shiloh, the son of Judah, "To him shall the gathering of 
the people be.'' Many a type and prophecy indicate this. 
Hence, according to prophecy, " he came in the fulness of time'' 
to his otm nation; but " his own people received him not." "To 
as many, however, as received him" in his proper character, 
and to none else, "he gave the privilege of becoming the children 
of God, even to them that believe on his name ; who were born 
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God." Hence " if we be Christ's," and in no other way, 
*'weare Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." 



334 REVIEWS OP THE 

The worldly sanctuary and service are ubolished, and the 
worldly race of Abraham are broken off from now being the pe- 
culiar people of God. A portion, however, of the natural seed 
of Abraham became his spiritual seed, and formed the nucleus 
of a new institution. To them, as Christ's church, the believing 
Gentiles are added. Thus the natural branches of God's an- 
cient olive-tree are every one broken off; and none but spiritual 
branches, or believing men and women, are regarded as his pe- 
culiar people. Into this good olive-tree believing Gentiles are 
as admissible as believing Jews; for now "we are all the 
children of God by faith in Jesus Christ ;'' and " if any man be 
in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, be- 
hold all things have become new." 

How Dr. Miller could mystify or overlook the three following 
declarations, — " Because of unbelief they were broken off'' — - 
"Thou standest by faith" — and, "If they abide not in unbelief, 
God will graft them in again" — can only be explained on the 
alleged all-predominating power of prejudice. Are not these 
declarations fatal to his assumption that all that are born of a 
certain kind of human flesh are, without faith, to be grafted into 
Christ's good olive-tree ? To any such engrafted individual, who 
could say with Paul, " Thou standest hy faith f^' " Be not high- 
minded, but fear !" 

Dr. Miller's ^^/^^ argument is — ^^ If infants were once members, 
and if the church remains the same, they undoubtedly are still 
members, unless some positive Divine enactment excluding them can 
he found J' P. 21. But we have shown that infants never were 
members of any church less than a whole nation, or a church 
founded on blood. Therefore, his fifth argument is, in one of 
its branches, altogether baseless as a dream. In the other 
branch — " if the church remains the same" — it is equally with- 
out foundation. There never was a community on the earth 
founded upon faith till Jesus Christ came. This is the divine and 
glorious character of Christ's Church. All other communities, 
ancient or modern, are founded in blood or selfishness of some 
kind. But this alone is founded on faith — " If thou believest 
with all thy heart thou mayestJ^ This is its essential and indis- 
pensable prerequisite. "That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh." Hence we must be born again in order to enter into 
Christ's kingdom. 

^ifi sixth argument is to show that baptism came in the room of 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 335 

circumcision. He, however, strange to tell, proves that it hag 
not come in the room of it. He says that " circumcision pub- 
licly ratified admission or entrance into the visible family of God/' 
P. 23. But circumcision was not the door into Abraham's 
family, or the family composed of the children of Abraham. 
Natural birth was the door, and not circumcision. Moreover, 
circumcision was confined to male children. It was also re- 
stricted to the eighth day after natural birth. In these particu- 
lars, as in many others, baptism is proved not designed to fill 
or occupy the room of circumcision. He seems to have forgot- 
ten that Jesus Christ was himself both circumcised and bap - 
tized— that the twelve Apostles were circumcised and baptized — 
that the whole Christian church, for seven years after its birth 
on Pentecost, in its myriads of converts, all Jews, was entirely 
composed of persons both circumcised and baptized — myriads 
of the Jews believed and were baptized. Two seals, blood and 
water, attached to one subject and to one covenant as doors into 
the church ! 

Nay, farther, he asserts that circumcision was done away, and 
that baptism came in the room of it. But where is his proof? 
Circumcision was not, in any recorded case, dispensed with. 
The believing Jews, down to the end of the New Testament his- 
tory, circumcised their children. Paul publicly declared, by an 
overt act, that he had not commanded them to desist from cir- 
cumcising their children. It is, then, perfectly gratuitous to 
affirm that circumcision has been done away by any divine 
statute ; and, consequently, that baptism has come in the room 
of it. 

Dr. Miller's seventh argument for infant baptism is household 
baptism, already noted. Bishop Kenrick gives that up, as wholly 
inconclusive, and so must every enlightened man of candour. 
There is no case of family baptism indicating infant baptism. 
On the contrary, we have shown that there is internal evidence 
that there was no case of infant baptism in any one of them. 
But suppose there was no ambiguity on the subject of infant 
baptism, that it was a matter clearly established ; even then it 
could not be proved that in the three or four families reported 
to have been all baptized, there was an infant in them. In the 
first place, it is not named. Hence it is inferential. There is 
no circumstance at all indicating or even implying it. Then it 
rests upon mere possibility, not upon the least probability ; for 



336 REVIEWS OP THE 

there are amongst us many families or households and not an 
infant in them. Therefore, nothing remains but bare possibi- 
lity; and he that builds a Christian institution upon a mere 
possibility, is not to be reasoned against ; for there is no sound 
reason in him. 

His eigMJi reason is, that *^ had the sign of infant membership 
been suddenly withdrawn, there would have been wounds and 
murmurings, and feelings of deep revolt and complaint against 
the new economy .'' Had they, indeed, had as carnal and secu- 
lar views as Dr. Miller seems to have of Christianity and Chris- 
tian baptism, there would have been a fearful tumult and up- 
roar among the people. But when we remember that faith and 
repentance, from the days of the Harbinger, were preached as 
essentially prerequisite to baptism, and that John refused to 
baptize some who demanded it on the ground of having Abra- 
ham, or some saint, for their father, we only wonder that any 
one well read in the New Testament could have ever found such 
an objection. And still more especially, after reading the Acts 
of Apostles, in which faith is so often connected indissolubly 
with baptism. When Jesus said, " He that belie veth and is 
baptized shall be saved," who can rationally expect to find his 
followers and his Apostles teaching by their practice — ^he that is 
baptized without faith shall be saved ? 

His ninth argument is, " The New Testament abounds with 
passages which cannot reasonably be explained but in har- 
mony with this doctrine." 

Among his specifications, the following are deserving of notice: 
The first is a prediction of Isaiah, intimating that a time would 
come in which the wolf and the lamb would feed together — ^in 
which God would create new heavens and a new earth — increase 
the age and comforts of his people and bless their offspring. He 
next relies upon the words of the Saviour to those who were in- 
hibiting parents from bringing their children to the Lord for 
the imposition of his hands and a benediction. The next is 
Peter's assurance to the Jews that the promise of the Holy 
Spirit was tendered to the believing Jews and their descendants 
or children. And then the argument of Paul to those who would 
have some believing wives or husbands to separate from their un- 
believing partners. To the last of these only need we now advert, 
as the others have been already examined in our last Review. 
Indeed, the promise quoted from Isaiah for the sake of the 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 337 

phrase, "and! their offspring with them,^' and that from Acts ii., 
"The promise is to you and ymir children" are but a puerile 
play upon the words children and offspring, as if offspring and 
children were identical with speechless babes. These terms 
generally mean our descendants. We are at eighty years the 
children of our fathers — -just as much their offspring at eighty 
years as eight days. These are so palpably a begging of the 
question, that it would be only an idle parade of words to ex- 
pose them. 

But the sentence, 1 Cor. vii. 14, calls for a special notice, as 
we have formerly adduced it as a conclusive argument against 
the slightest probability of infant baptism as either taught or 
thought of in the apostolic age. It stands before the public un- 
responded to in my discussion with Mr. Kice. The words are — 
"The unbelieving husband is sanctified hj" (or to) "the wife; 
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified hj" (or to) "the husband; 
else were your children unclean ; but now are they holy," Booth, 
in his " Pedobaptism Examined,'' adduces more than twenty of our 
most distinguished critics, reformers, and commentators ; among 
whom are Melancthon, Whitby, Camerarius, Wolfius, Yitringa, 
&c., in proof that the holiness or sanctification of the unbelieving 
party and their children here is not that of the new covenant 
nor of church relation ; but as bread is " sanctified by the word 
of God and prayer,'' so is this relation sanctified as respects 
matrimonial intimacies. The marriage relation and those grow- 
ing out of it are not to be dissolved, but are lawful and proper, 
though one of the parties should not be converted to God with 
the other. For, were it otherwise, your offspring would be un- 
clean and not to be endured ; but now are they holy or sanctified 
to you. Two things must appear obvious, as we conceive, from 
this passage: — First, That the unbelieving parent and the child 
were in the same sense sanctified or holy to the other party; 
and, in the second place, that, as the Apostle changes the address 
from the third person to the second, he includes all the infants 
born to the church in Corinth. " Your" not their " children,'^ 
said the Apostle, are not to be judged unclean and to be repu- 
diated : but to be regarded as worthy of your care, protection, 
and support. 

Now had infant baptism been ordained in the primitive church, 
all infants would have been alike consecrated by it, and the 
Apostle could not have said, ''Else were your children unclean;" 

29 



338 REVIEWS OP THE 

for that could not have been supposed had they been baptized. 
Thus it is manifest, from this passage alone, that infant church 
membership and infant baptism were alike unknown and un- 
thought of in the age of the Apostles. 

But to make infant holiness a passport'to baptism is not only 
unsupported but unsupportable by any plausible proof deduced 
from the New Testament. Infant holiness, in a covenant sense, 
a prerequisite to baptism, is certainly, so far as the oracles of 
Christ and his Apostles are regarded, a new idea. What a 
strange argument Dr. Miller puts into the mouth of Peter ! Dr. 
Luke makes him say, " Be baptized every one of you for the re- 
mission of sins.'' Doctor Ananias says to Paul, "Arise and 
be baptized, and wash away your sins.'' But Dr. Miller says, 
** Arise and be baptized, you innocent babes, and wash your- 
selves, because you are relatively holy, and are actually born 
members of the church."* 

Dr. Miller's tenth and last argument for infant baptism is, 
** Finally, tJie Mstory of tlie Christian church from the apostolic 
age furnishes an argument of irresistible force in favour of the 
Divine authority of infant baptism.'^ 

Of this argument we cannot say much. We have already 
noticed it in our last essay, and shown that there is no historic 
evidence of infant baptism till the third century. When first 
named, too, it was opposed as an innovation. And what is no 
little remarkable, infant communion at the Lord's table is as 
well authenticated from the annals of the church of the same 
century as it is. Nay, more, the monastic life, or perpetual 
celibacy, constitutes another of its coevals, and virginity becomes 
as efficacious to gain heaven and glory as faith in Christ or his 
resurrection from the dead. Infant baptism, infant communion, 
perpetual virginity, are of the same origin and of the same cen- 
tury, as we may hereafter show, and I hope to the conviction 
of some who have long been imposed on by the alleged high 
antiquity of infant church membership and infant baptism. We 
have not yet bid adieu to Dr. Miller of Princeton. We only bid 
him good-bye, in hope of listening to him on some other branch 
of the subject. 

* Dr. Miller quotes with approbation the late Dr. Mason, of New York, who took 
the bold and presumptive ground that " the infants of believing persons are born 
members of his church." P. 32. Query — If they are horn rmnibcrs of the churchy 
how can baptism he the dooi' of admission t 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 33^ 



CHAPTER III. 

REVIEW OF PROFESSOR MILLER OF PRINCETON; AND DR. WALL, 
VICAR OF SHOREM, IN KENT. 

Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop of Philadelphia, as before 
cited, in his *' Treatise of Baptism^' admits that infant baptism 
cannot be satisfactorily sustained from the inspired writings. 
His words are — "Without the aid of tradition, the practice of 
baptizing infants cannot be satisfactorily vindicated, the Scripture 
proofs on this point not being thoroughly conclusive ; yet we do 
not, on this account, neglect the arguments which it furnishes, 
and which have considerable force. '^^ 

Dr. Wall also relies much more on tradition than on apostolic 
testimony. He occupies a volume with quotations, and comments 
upon them, from the Fathers and the ancient Councils, both 
general and local. Tradition is, indeed, his main pillar. He 
quotes incomparably more from the Fathers and ancient writers 
than from Moses and the Prophets, or from Jesus and the 
Apostles. He begins with Clemens Romanus, and Hermas, 
and arrays before us in great pomp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, 
Clemens Alexandrinus, TertuUian, Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Basil, 
St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Austin, &c. He even 
adduces Pelagius, the heterodox Caelestius, and Pope Zosimus. 
The Donatists, Arians, and Pelagians, equally with the orthodox, 
are made to pass in review, and to declare in favour of infant 
ablution or infant immersion. With Dr. Wall there was no 
baptism, in form or in fact, without immersion. But those who 
now rely upon him in sustaining the traditional subjects of 
baptism will not hear him on the apostolic form of the institu- 
tion itself. They admit but one-half of his testimony, and reject 
the other half. They will have infant affusion, but Dr. Wall 
will have infant immersion. 

In the present essay, I shall attempt to show that the argu- 
ment from tradition, drawn out with so much display, proves 
too much for any sect of Protestants in Christendom. Ad- 
mitting that every author adduced relates with all truthfulness 
and fidelity the facts which he states, as transpiring in his own 

* Page 129, Philadelphia edition, 1843. 



MO REVIEWS OP THE 

age or country, on Protestant principles, with Protestants them- 
selves it can afford no authority for infant baptism. 

It is a rule or law of evidence, of universal acquiescence and 
authority, that the testimony of any witness is admissible or in- 
admissible to the full extent of his deposition. So far, then, as 
it is his testimony, we are obliged to receive all or none of it. 
If, for example, we receive the testimony of TertuUian, Origen, 
Cyprian, Chrysostom, &c. &c., as to the existence of infant 
baptism in their day and country, we must also receive their 
testimony in favour of infant communion, and in favour of the 
monastic and ascetic life. With whatever respect for them, or 
with whatever authority we receive their testimony in the one 
case, we must receive it in the other cases. If their testimony 
be authoritative touching any fact or opinion, as to the existence 
of it, the universality of it, or the meaning of it, it is equally so 
touching them all. This being an oracle of common sense — an 
axiom in moral evidence — we assume it, and proceed upon the 
assumption, as upon an incontrovertible fact. 

We, therefore, proceed to show that all the authors of note re- 
lied on by Dr. Miller, Dr. Wall, or any other doctor of Protestant 
theology, in proof of the early existence of infant baptism, who 
have distinctly named or alluded to it, as a custom, or rite, 
existing in their time, equally establish the existence, uni- 
versality, and antiquity of religious celibacy, the sanctifying 
efficacy of virginity, and the superlative merit of the monastic 
life. 

Since writing my last essay on this subject, I have read, with 
more or less attention, some hundreds of pages, many of which, 
though read in former years, were again read as though en- 
tirely new, that I might repose in the full assurance that I give 
a faithful view of the testimony and opinions of the authors 
quoted. And, although in possession of the principal records 
of both Grecian and Roman Fathers and their opinions, I gene- 
rally prefer to quote- their opinions and statements from Taylor's 
** Ancient Christianity," because now a popular work; and 
because he has with great fidelity and ability examined and 
reported the views of the Greek and Roman Fathers on the 
subjects named; and especially because his antagonists, the 
Oxford Tract theologians, with all their armour on, have not, 
so far as I have learned, presumed to cavil at his array of 
patristic authority and opinions. 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 341 

I state the argument in the following terms : — Eomanists quote 
the Greek and early Roman fathers of the four first centuries, in 
proof of monastic life — the celibacy of the clergy — the merit of per- 
petual virginity — the pontificate of Peter in Rome — and infant com- 
munion, Protestants quote the same authorities for infant bap- 
tism, and argue from them in the same manner as the Romanists 
for their other traditions. But Protestants repudiate the Greek 
and Roman Fathers as competent and credible witnesses for in- 
fant communion, the pontificate of Peter in Rome, the monastic 
life, , and a bachelor priesthood; yet they quote with confidence 
and hear with gladness the same authors in favour of infant bap- 
tism. This we regard as an indefensible aberration from sound 
logic and fair play. If we receive their testimony in the one case, 
in evidence of the universality, antiquity, and authority of in- 
fant baptism, we ought by all means to receive the whole of 
their testimony in the case of the universality, antiquity^ and 
authority of the monastic life — the celibacy of the clergy, the 
merits of perpetual virginity, &c. &c. 

But Protestants will say that the Romanists in these cases 
depend upon tradition alone for authority, while, in the case of 
infant baptism, we mainly depend upon scriptural authority, and 
only corroborate it by the ancient Greek and Roman Fathers, 
historians, and commentators. This, however, is not the fact. 
Romanists plead for scriptural authority for their traditions and 
found their arguments on what they call "Bible doctrine,'' if 
not upon express Bible precepts and positive enactments. Pro- 
testants are not able to maintain this ground with sensible and 
well read Romanists. For example, take the monastic life, the 
celibacy of the clergy, and the merits of perpetual virginity, and 
ask a well bred and well read Romanist, What Bible authority 
have you, sir, for these traditions ? "What defence will he 
make ? Probably he will begin with Paul, the great Apostle to 
the Gentiles, Barnabas his companion, and Timothy his adopted 
son ; and show that they waived matrimony for the kingdom of 
heaven's sake. He will also tell of those who forsook houses, 
and lands, and husbands, and wives, for the Lord's sake. Nay, 
he will read you two learned homilies — one on a passage from 
Jesus, and one from Paul. That from Jesus is recorded Mat- 
thew xix. 12 : " For there are some eunuchs which were so born 
from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which 
were made eunuchs by men, and there be eunuchs who have 

29* 



342 REVIEWS OP THE 

made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. 
He that is able to receive it, let him receive it J' Monks, say some 
Romanists, are eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. 
" They have made themselves so.'' " Now let him that can re- 
ceive it, receive it ;" that is, say they, " make themselves eunuchs, 
or monks, for the sake of gaining the kingdom of heaven." The 
famous Origen literally made himself a eunuch for the kingdom 
of heaven's sake. The Essenes, contemporary with the Messiah, 
are by some supposed to be here alluded to by him. They were 
really monks for the sake of greater seclusion from the world, 
and were regarded as the most pure and holy sect among the 
Jews. Here, then, says the Romanist, is high authority for 
the plea of the superior spirituality and sanctity of virginity 
and the ascetic life. Now who can make a more scriptural ar- 
gument for infant baptism than this ? — ! 

Bu4 this is not all. Paul teaches the theory as well as the 
practice of celibacy. Hear him : — " It is good," says he, " for 
a man not to touch a woman." And certainly better for a 
woman not to touch a man ! " I say, then, to the unmarried 
and to widows, it is good for them if they abide" (single !) 
" even as I. For I would that all men were even as I myself. 
Art thou loosed from a wife, then seek not a wife. He that is 
unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please 
the Lord ; but he that is married careth for the things of the 
world how he may please his wife. The unmarried woman 
careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in 
body and in spirit ; but she that is married careth for the things 
of the world, how she may please her husband." Doubtless, 
then, if " he that giveth his daughter in marriage doeth well, he 
that giveth her not in marriage doeth better." Now who may 
not hence infer that Paul was in favour of nuns as well as monks ^ 
From these premises, can any one reasonably say that the Ro- 
manist depends less on the Bible for his holiness of virginity 
and the excellency of monkery than does the Pedobaptist for 
his infant initiation and dedication to the Lord ? I trow not. 
So far, to say the least, methinks, the Bible plea for the sanctity 
and blessedness of celibacy and that of infant holiness, or infant 
baptism, are inferentially equal. 

But our present business is with tradition. For this purpose, 
we have selected that prolific cause and fountain of Roman pol- 
lutions, the Monachism. We shall, therefore, give a few speci- 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 813 

mens of the estimation in which it was held by the Ante-Nicene 
Fathers. To be understood by the least conversant with eccle- 
siastic history, in these brief allusions and quotations, I will state 
that the Fathers, so called by the Greek and Roman churches, 
are divided into three classes : — The Apostolic Fathers — viz. Bar- 
nabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. 
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, or those who were conspicuous at or 
before the Council of Nice, which sat two or three months at 
Nice, in Bythinia, a. d. 325. Socrates says that 318 Bishops 
met in this council. The present Nicene Creed is, indeed, but 
a development or expansion of the Council of Nice, made by 
150 Bishops at the second general council, which, in 381, met 
at Constantinople. 

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, so called, are the heau ideal of Pro- 
testant orthodoxy; and, hence, the names of Papias, Justin 
Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, 
Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, 
Hilary, Basil, the two Gregories, Nazianzen and Nyssen, Am- 
brose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and 
Theodoret, are conspicuous — not all, indeed, but a majority of 
them, Ante-Nicene : for there are in all forty-two Fathers, a ma- 
jority of which were Ante-Nicene, while the others are called Post- 
Nicene, These, together with the five Apostolic Fathers, make 
out the entire Fathers of the Greek, Roman, and Protestant 
churches, amounting in all to forty-seven. 

Now, in glancing at these, we shall summon a few of the most 
famous, both as fathers and as writers, to represent the whole 
patristic brotherhood, whose opinions give laws to the Catholic 
church in all matters of opinion, faith, and practice. Before 
hearing them depose, we shall quote a few passages from the 
most conspicuous and authoritative of them, declarative of the 
Catholic views of the monastic life. 

But, as farther prefatory to these, we must allude to the Gre- 
cian fountain of errors, which, together with the Gnostic and Ro- 
man fountains, gradually corrupted the whole Christian church. 

The Greeks had a temple dedicated to Hestia, who, as the 
tradition goes, when wooed by Neptune, laid her hand on the 
head of Jupiter and vowed perpetual virginity ; for which he al- 
lotted to her a throne in the midst of every mansion, the choicest 
portions of the sacrifices, and to be Jwnoured in all the temples of 
the gods. 



344 REVIEWS OP THE 

The Roman Vesta, for whom was erected a splendid temple 
in Rome, was but a new version of the Grecian Hestia. On the 
altar of this splendid temple perpetually jQamed a holy fire, 
tended by six priestesses. Hence, at an early period, arose in 
the Christian churches the idea of having in the cloister con- 
nected with them bands of females sworn to chastity and the 
Lord. These became the archetypes of all the sisterhoods in all 
the abbeys, convents, priories, nunneries, cloisters, in ancient 
and modern Christendom. The grand question which pioneered 
the way for the general admission into the church of these abomi- 
nations, was, " Satan lias his devoted widows and his virgin jpriest- 
esses, and should not Christ have hisf 

Concerning this much extolled institution, so canonized and 
glorified as the only path to the highest honours of Paradise, we 
have the opinion of almost all the early Greek and Roman Fa- 
thers. It is set forth in such terms as the following : — " The 
celestial or angelic excellence of virginity,^' cultivated by *Hhe 
spouses of Christ,^' who, "in the celestial and apostolic practice 
of vowing virginity to the Lord,^^ have arisen to the loftiest pin- 
nacle in the temple as " Christ^s jewels.'' 

It would be disgusting rather than acceptable to most of our 
readers, to enter into the secrets of these holy vestal virgins, de- 
voted to the church. Yet we must allude to the contaminations 
of sacerdotal virtue universally attendant on their existence, as 
expressed by their warmest advocates and apologists. Even 
Cyprian himself speaks of clerical paramours — of the spiritual 
intercourse of these father confessors with these immaculate an- 
gelic virgins, as to make the whole institution a public scandal, 
a disgrace to even Rome or Corinth in their most wanton days, 
and to make his nunneries or abbeys any thing but houses of 
prayer — the residence of virgin purity and piety. 

These abuses, or rather legitimate fruits of the system, called 
forth many an excuse, and originated some singular expositions 
of Scripture ; a sample of which we will give from TertuUian — 
'' The command, * Increase and multiply,' is abolished ; yet, as I 
think, (contrary to the Gnostic opinion,) this command in the 
first instance, and now the removal of it, are from one and the 
same God ; who then, and in that early seed-time of the human 
race, gave the reins to the marrying principle until the world 
should be replenished, and until he had prepared the elements 
of a new school of discipline. But now, in this conclusion of 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 345 

the ages, he restrains what once he had let loose, and revokes 
what he had permitted. In a thousand instances, indulgence is 
granted at the beginning of things. So it is that a man plants 
a wood and allows it to grow, intending in due time to use the 
axe. The wood, then, is the old dispensation, which is done 
away by the gospel, in which the axe is laid at the root of the 
tree.'' So reasons the first man who, in any extant records of 
the church, first names infant baptism ! ! We shall next hear 
St. Cyprian, born a. d. 200. 

So early as the age of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, born 
one hundred years after John the Apostle died, the notion of the 
divine virtue and excellency of celibacy had so generally pre- 
vailed in the church, that he complains, in no measured terms, 
of the abuses of it. ** Concerning those,'' says he, "who, after 
having solemnly devoted themselves to continence, have been 
found cohabiting with men — [detecfae in eodem lecio pariter man- 
sisse cum mascuUs) — yet professing themselves inviolate, you 
have desired my advice. It is, then," replies the bishop, " by 
no means to be allowed that young women live with men. If, 
indeed, they have cordially dedicated themselves to Christ, let 
them modestly and chastely, and without subterfuge, hold to 
their purpose, and thus, constant and firm, look for the reward 
of virtue — premium virginitatisJ' So general was the idea of 
the angelic virtue of celibacy, that, in Cyprian's time, it had 
been so perverted by the priesthood as to call for Cyprian's de- 
nunciations against the clergy in such language as, "How shall 
the clergy be guides in the path of virtue and piety, if from 
them proceeds a contaminating warranty of vice. Thou hast, 
therefore, well done in withdrawing from the deacon and others 
qui cum virginibus dormire consueverimtJ'^ 

Clement of Alexandria, who rather preceded St. Cyprian as a 
writer, speaks in terms as bold as the Bishop of Carthage. But 
we prefer to quote a few words more from St. Cyprian, because 
Dr. Miller and Dr. "Wall make much of his testimony as to the 
prevalence of infant baptism in his Carthaginian diocese. How 
monkery prospered under his dispensations, we may learn from 
his encomiums upon it. In addressing nuns, he says, " These 
are the flowers of the ecclesiastical plant — the grace and orna- 
ment of the heavenly grace — a gladsome produce — a work, whole 

* Who arc accustomed to sleep with virgins. Ancient Chris., p. 114. 



S46 REVIEWS OP THE 

and incorrupt, of all honour and all praise — the image of God 
reflecting the sanctity of the Lord and the most illustrious por- 
tion of Christ's flocks. By these, [nuns,] and in these, is the 
noble fecundity of Mother Church recommended and made 
copiously to flourish ; and just so much as this plentiful vir- 
ginity swells its numbers, does the Mother herself augment her 
joys. It is to these, then, that I speak — it is these that I pro- 
ceed to exhort — yet in affection rather than in the tones of au- 
thority.'' Farther, our good Archbishop Cyprian says, " The 
continence and pudicity proper to a nun do not consist merely 
in the inviolate perfection of the body ; but, besides, the inte- 
grity of the body consists in the fair and modest attire and 
ornament of the person.'' After this quotation, Mr. Taylor ex- 
claims, and we exclaim with him, *'Here is excellent Quakerism 
as well as Popery, and both sixteen hundred years old." Mo- 
desty forbids us from quoting Cyprian in what he says farther 
of this "plentiful virginity," when reproving them for their 
shameful pranks at the public baths. He asks, "What have 
virgins of the church to do at promiscuous baths — to violate the 
commonest dictates of feminine modesty ? ! "With your robes, 
your personal honour and reserve are cast off." According to 
Mr. Taylor, modern Popery is quite a reform upon '^ ancient 
Christianity,^' or the Christianity contemporary with the origin of 
infant baptism. 

If I might quote St. Bernard here, though not of the fathers 
of the church, but as one who had more personal authority and 
popularity than any one man that ever lived since the Council 
of Nice — to whom popes and their vassals gave equal reve- 
rence — of whom Luther said, " If ever there has been a pious 
monk who feared God, it was St. Bernard, whom I hold," said 
the reformer, "in much higher esteem than all other monks and 
priests throughout the globe." 

Of virginity, which he calls chastity, he says, "What so fair 
as this chastity, which makes of a man an angel ! An angel 
and a churchman differ, indeed, as to purity, but not as to vir- 
tue — for, although the purity of the angel be the happier of the 
two, that of the man must be admitted to be the more ener- 
getic." "Who, then," continues he, "would scruple to call the 
life of the Coelebs a celestial and angelic life ! or what will all 
the elect be at the resurrection which ye are not even now, as 
the angels of God in heaven, who abstain from matrimonial con- 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 347 

nections/' **You grasp, my beloved brethren, the pearl of 
great price, ye grasp that sanctity which renders you like to the 
saints in glory, and the home servants of God, as saith the 
Scriptures, incorruptness places us next to God ; not by your 
own merits are you what you are, but by the grace of God ; 
and, as chastity and sanctity, I may call you terrestrial an- 
gels/' 

It would be easy for me to fill many pages from Tertullian and 
Cyprian to the same effect. They are, indeed, followed in their 
views by almost all the ancient church. Isidore says, "As high 
as the heavens are above the earth, and as far as the soul excels 
the body, so does the state of virginity surpass that of matri- 
mony .'' That these were not novelties or innovations, even in 
the times of Tertullian and Cyprian, may be inferred from a 
passage in Justin Martyr's Second Apology. His words are, 
**Many men as well as women who, having followed the Chris- 
tian institution from their earliest years, have remained to an 
advanced age — sixty or seventy years incorrupt — diaphoroi dia- 
menousai — unmarried or inviolate.'' Nay, we find in the Epis- 
tles of Ignatius to Polycarp, contemporaries, if not converts, of 
John the Apostle, indications of the germ of this opinion or 
theory of asceticism. His words are, "If any one be able to 
abide in purity, (celibacy,) in honour of the Lord's flesh, let 
him do so without boasting. If he boasts, he is lost ; or, if he 
consider himself, on that account, more than the bishop, he 
perishes." 

The early attempts to fabricate tales of the perpetual virginity 
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, owe their origin to the same spirit 
of error. They will have her still the Virgin Mary, though the 
wife of Joseph, after she had brought forth her first born son. 
Could Jesus have been her first born, if she had never had a 
second child ? Or could it be said that he knew her not, until 
she had brought forth her first born son, if he had never known 
her ? But there is nothing can stand erect, however strong and 
clear, before the spirit of fraud or fiction. 

It is alleged that Ignatius is the first that called the nuns 
^Hhe espoused of Christ," and " Chris fs jewels." But this is a 
matter of little moment, inasmuch as at a very early p^riod a 
new nomenclature was introduced. We hear Tertullian asking 
with indignation, "Shall one who has contracted a second mar- 
riage baptize ?" " Or, shall such a one make the eucharisiio 



348 REVIEWS OF THE 

oblation ?'' But before this style and terminology, we have the 
Gnostics, the Nicolaitans, the Essenes, the Ebionites, and the 
Cabalistic Jews foisting into the Christian vocabulary an im- 
pure speech, from which it has never been expurgated. In view 
of this fact, and the history of the first century of Christianity, 
I concur with Isaac Taylor, author of " Spiritual Despotism," 
and the "Natural History of Enthusiasm," &c. &c., in the fol- 
lowing opinions: — "The opinion that has forced itself upon my 
own mind is to this effect; that the period, dating its commence- 
ment from the death of the last of the Apostles or apostolic 
men, was altogether as little deserving to be selected and pro- 
posed as a pattern as any one of the first five of church history ; 
it had, indeed, its single points of excellence, and of a high 
order ; but by no means shown in those consistent and exem- 
plary qualities which should entitle it to the honour of being 
considered as a model to after ages." " The grossest errors 

OF THEORY AND PRACTICE ARE TO BE TRACED TO THEIR ORIGIN 
IN THE FIRST CENTURY." 

Of course, we should not wonder to see such men as Ambrose, 
Basil, Gregory Nyssen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine, 
endorsing for celibacy, monkery, and the whole ascetic system, 
as set forth in the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, and their 
predecessors. We cafi endorse the great Basil affirming that 
"Virginity is that which makes man resemble the incorruptible 
God ;" and I can believe J. Taylor in affirming, "that an unre- 
served translation of Basil, one of the best of the fathers, could 
it be tolerated, would astound the Christian world." And what 
shall we say of Chrysostom, addressing a nun, saying that, 
"like cherubim and seraphim, she and her order constituted not 
the attendants of the Eternal King, but his very chariot." 
And, again, "gold hath, indeed, by nature its splendour; but 
when saturate with fire, how admirable, nay, even fearful it is ! 
And thus, when a soul such as this occupies the body, not only 
shall the spectacle be wondered at by men, but by angels." 
Glory, honour, and immortality to the nuns ! ! 

To complete the picture of ancient (but not Apostolic) Chris- 
tianity, to which Dr. "Wall and Dr. Miller trace up infant bap- 
tism in the argument now under consideration, I feel disposed 
to introduce St. Athanasius himself, ^^tJie cliief of the first three^' 
in the esteem of them that worship antiquity. But I have space 
only to say of him what is equally true, and truly said by Mr, 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 349 

Taylor, of his contemporaries — Gregory of Nyssa, his brother 
Basil, and Ambrose — in the following interrogatories : — 

1st. "Aside from the mere ecclesiastical question of the pre- 
tensions of the Bishop of Rome, can any broad and intelligible 
distinction be established between Gregory Nyssen and the 
Popery of the tenth century V 

2d. "Can any important distinction be made good between 
this Gregory and his contemporaries, Basil, Athanasius, and 
Ambrose V 

3d. "And this question I would humbly and seriously ad- 
dress to men fearing God, {and completely/ informed,) whether 
EACH ARTICLE of PauFs explicit prediction of the coming apos- 
tasy, does not find its pointed and complete fulfilment in the 
system which this writer's works imbody V 

And of Jerome — Jerome, the author of the Yulgate — the 
more learned and intelligent Jerome, the same author says, 
"Jerome must take his place among the foremost promoters of 
the false principles of the Nicene church system^ ^ — of Popery in 
its worst form. 

I prefer interposing between myself and a portion of the 
reading public, the learned, the evangelical, the popular, and 
eloquent author of " Spiritual Despotism,'^ " Saturday Evening,'' 
"Ancient Christianity,'' and other interesting and instructive 
treatises ; because he cannot be suspected of any squinting to 
what some might call our own peculiarities on the proper scrip- 
tural evangelical subject of Christian baptism. 

No one, however, in England or in America, in the present 
century, nor in any century since Luther fulminated against the 
Lion of Popery, has given a more complete and decisive blow to 
English and Scottish pedobaptism and pedorantism, so far as 
any appeal or reference to human tradition, ecclesiastic history, 
or patristic authority, however nearly approximating the apos- 
tolic age, the days of Saint John, Saint Peter, or Saint Paul, 
than this same Mr. Isaac Taylor, in his treatise, from which I 
have drawn so freely in this essay. 

Courteous reader, ask no more how could the custom of bap- 
tizing infants, or unbelieving boys, so soon and so generally 
appear in the ages immediately succeeding the Apostles. This, 
however, is not the fact, as is too often assumed, and as we may 
hereafter show ; but admitting, for the sake of argument, that 
it is named by Tertullian at the close of the second or at the 

80 



850 REVIEWS OP THE 

commencement of the third century, what of it, since then, or 
long before that time, also appeared monkery, asceticism, the 
omnipotence of virginity, and the embryo blossoms of all the 
abominations of Popery? — ! Errors universally reprobated by 
all Protestants, which Papistical writers advocate, and without 
which Popery would immediately die, are still more ancient, 
more venerable, more universal than infant affusion or infant 
immersion, and advocated by all and hy more than all the ancient 
writers that are quoted in proof of the antiquity, universality, 
or of the importance of infant ablution. 

Let no one ask, How could infant baptism be so early intro- 
duced and spread so fast or so far, unless originally of apostolic 
authority, because of his own inability to answer the question. 
Is he a Protestantf Let him, then, rather ask. How a virgin 
priesthood, refusing to ordain the husband of one wife, could so 
early have been imagined, much less enacted in the face of him 
who said, **Let him be the husband of one wife — ruling his own 
children well,^' &c. Is he a Protestant? Then let him ask, 
How could they so early refuse the cup to the laity, in the face 
of the oracle of Christ — saying, "Drink you all of it.'' Is he a 
Protestant? Let him then explain how could they have con- 
verted Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a virgin, and christened 
her the immaculate holy Mary. And although Jesus repudiated 
her having any peculiar power with him, because she was his 
Jleshly mother, making all the faithful women severally his 
mother or his sister, as the case might be, how can they invoke 
her name ten times for once they invoke that of her Son, and 
then always to intercede for them with her Son, as possessing 
still fleshly maternal authority with him! Is he a Protestant? 
Let him show how auricular confession, transubstantiation, in- 
vocation of the saints, prayers for the dead, purgatory, and 
penance began, before he perplexes himself or any one else 
upon the question, How originated infant ablution ? 

Dr. Miller's tenth argument in favour of infant baptism, as 
reported from his own book in our last essay, is — "Finally, the 
history of the Christian church from the apostolic age furnishes an 
argument of irresistible force in favour of the Divine authority 
of infant baptism." From the documentary evidence we have 
furnished from the history of the Christian church, may we not 
now ask, not only the reader of Dr. Miller's book, but Dr. Miller 
himself, Whether Leo X, or Pius IX,, both old bachelors, might 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 351 

not, with equal show of reason and evidence, have said, ^^ Finally ^ 
the history of the church from the apostolic age furnishes an argu- 
ment of irresistible force in favour of the divine authority of sacer" 
dotal celibacy, of the sanctity of virginity, and the sublime excellency 
of a monastic life" 

Dr. Miller's logic is evidently at fault here, as in some other 
points. His witnesses prove too much for him ; and would, if 
he dare listen to them to the end of their testimony, compel him 
to become the advocate of an unmarried ministry, and of the 
paramount purity of monks, and friars, and vestal nuns. He 
has as venerable, as learned, and as numerous a host of eccle- 
siastic fathers, confessors, and historians in favour of clerical 
celibacy as in favour of infant baptism, — nay, I will strongly 
af&rm, a much more numerous and powerful host in favour of 
the heaven-subduing grace of pure virginity, sanctified at the 
altar of the church, than he or any other man on this continent 
can adduce in favour of infant afiusion or infant baptism. 

If, then, the number or reputation of the authorities, ac- 
cording to Dr. Miller, renders the argument from church 
history " irresistible' as respects the divine authority of infant 
baptism ; the argument from church history must be equally 
irresistible in favour of monkery and an unmarried priesthood : 
for we have all the same authorities, and a few more of as high, 
if not of a still higher reputation than they, in favour of the 
most baseless, most unreasonable, most desolating tenet of 
Popery — the heaven-subduing potency of perpetual bachelor- 
ship or celibacy, and its indispensability to the efficacious ad- 
ministration of ecclesiastical institutions, and to the virtue of 
prayers, penances, and intercessions. 



352 REVIEWS OP THE 



CHAPTER IV. 

REYIEW OP PROFESSOR MILLER OF PRINCETON; DR. WALL, VICAR 
OF SHOREM, IN KENT, AND OTHERS. 

Haying already given a fair, and, I think, ample specimen of 
the value of the testimony of those "Fathers'' mainly relied on 
by the most learned and influential of the advocates of infant 
baptism, I intend to occupy not many more pages on the argu- 
ment drawn from tradition, oral or written. We must logically 
and morally discriminate between the testimony of the Greek 
and Roman Fathers concerning facts and events extant or trans- 
piring in their own times, and their own opinions touching those 
facts and events. It is as much a fact that a certain opinion 
was entertained or propagated by a TertuUian, an Origen, or a 
Cyprian, as that such men lived in the third century. It may 
also be a fact that they entertained such an opinion, or that they 
did not; but neither the fact of their entertaining or not enter- 
taining any given opinion is any proof to us or to their contempo- 
raries of the truth or the falsehood of such an opinion. 

The fact that infant communion was as common as infant 
baptism in the ^^ ancient cJiurcJi,'' and that it was plead for by 
such men as Photius, Cyprian, Augustine, &c., should be, me- 
thinks, a sufficient reproof to all Protestants, at least, for their 
implicit admission of the testimony of certain Greek Fathers as ^ 
to the existence of an opinion in favour of infant baptism, or 
of the fact that some infants had been baptized in the third 
century. And certainly there' is still more incongruity in ad- 
ministering the elements commemorative of the Saviour's sacri- 
ficial death to an unconscious, unthinking babe, than in either 
sprinkling water upon its face, or in immersing it in water into 
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Still, in 
defiance of all reason, propriety, and the total absence of all 
scriptural authority, the whole Greek church and the whole 
Roman church admit infants to the eucharist; or, as some semi- 
protestants call it, the sacrament of the supper. If, then. Dr. 
Wall and Dr. Miller — if Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and all 
Pedobaptists receive as authorities ancient opinions, or the testi- 
mony of Greek and Roman Fathers as to the existence of opinions 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 353 

and practices in their times, in evidence of the Divine and apos- 
tolic authority of infant baptism, why repudiate their own wit- 
nesses when they equally depose in favour of infant communion? 
Why administer the one "sacrament^' to babes, and withhold 
from them the other " sacrament,'' having as good authority for 
the one as for the other? Nay, better for infant communion 
than for infant baptism — because infants ate the passover, which 
they say was the prototype and precedent of the supper. 

But as they are bold, we must be bold also. We affirm, and 
I know that our opponents dare not deny it, that not one of the 
five "Apostolic Fathers" — Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, 
Ignatius, or Polycarp — either name or allude to infant baptism, 
or say any thing that would imply it ; but, on the contrary, say 
that which implies believer baptism, and believer baptism only. 
Neither do the oldest of the Greek Fathers — Papias, Dionysius 
of Corinth, Tatian, Melito, Irenaeus, Theophilus, or Clement of 
Alexandria, name it. Nor, indeed, does Justin Martyr indicate 
the existence of the rite in his time. He is, however, the first 
of Dr. WalFs cloud of historic witnesses of the opinions on the 
subject. Certain it is, that Justin Martyr does not once name 
infant baptism. On the contrary, his history of Christianity in 
the second century forbids the assumption. His words are — (I 
have the Greek before me, but will give Dr. WalFs own version 
of them) — " Those who are persuaded and do believe those things 
which are taught by us are true, and do promise to live accord- 
ing to them, are directed first to pray and ask of God, with 
" fasting, the forgiveness of their former sins ; and we also pray 
and fast together with them."^ Then we bring them to some 
place where there is water, f and they are regenerated by the 
same way of regeneration by which we were regenerated; for they 
are washed with water in the name of God, the Father and Lord 
of all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy 
Spirit. For Christ says, unless you be regenerated you cannot 
enter into the kingdom of heaven : and everybody knows it is 
impossible for those that are once generated, or born, to enter 
again into their mother's womb." — " The washing is called the 
enlightening,^^ &c. Dr. Wall argues from this passage that the 
ancient church regarded baptism as regeneration, and as com- 

* Very like the actions of infants. 

f We are more courteous than Justin Martyr's Christians. We bring the water 
to the infants, but they carried the infants to the water! 

30* 



354 REVIEWS OF THE 

monly called it ' regeneration^ as the Episcopalians call it ' christen- 
ing? But, waiving all criticism on the propriety of this language, 
we only ask, How does all this prove infant baptism ? Does not 
the whole passage cited clearly intimate that the subjects of 
Justin Martyr's baptism were believers, and had agreed to live 
according to Christ's will, before they took them to the water ?* 

But the advocates of infant baptism will concede this, and flee- 
to another passage from the same author as directly favouring 
their theory. They quote a few words from Justin's First Apo- 
logy. The passage already read is from his Second Apology. 
We shall hear that portion from his First Apology : — " Several 
persons among us, of sixty and seventy years old, of both sexes, 
who were discipled (or made disciples) to Christ in or from their 
childhood, do continue uncorrupted (or virgins)." *'From 
childhood" — not from infancy. In the original Greek of Justin 
it is ek paidooUy which indicates from ten to fifteen, rather than 
from eight days to two years. There is not, then, any authority 
whatever for assuming Justin Martyr as a witness in favour of 
infant baptism. It cannot be logically or philologically deduced 
from any thing I have ever seen quoted from him. 

Unless, then, we assume that to be regenerated means neither 
more nor less than to be baptized, there is no Greek Father, no 
Apostolic Father, no ecclesiastic writer, who so much as names 
baptism in connection with infants before the third century. 
Nor, indeed, do they ever speak of regenerated infants. The 
Greeks have four words for children. They have hrepJios, a 
babe ; paidion, a little child ; teJcnion, a little child figuratively ; 
and pais, a youth, a stripling, any one under age. Now it 
happens that neither Dr. Wall nor Dr. Miller, nor any of those 
special pleaders for infant baptism, seem to know, and certainly 
do not make known to others, the fact which I have now stated : 
nay, they assume, without the shadow of proof, that pais must 
mean, in the New Testament, or in the style of the Greek 
Fathers, an infant ; that is, a hreplios, or babe ; and this, too, in 
the face of the fact that we have these four words frequently in 
the New Testament Greek, and wherever we find a literal habe 
or infant in the New Testament, we find hreplios in the original ; 
and wherever literal little cJiildren are spoken of, we have in no 
case pais, but always paidion or teknion, 

* Wall's History of Infant Baptism, yol. !., pp. 67, 70, Oxford edition, 1836. 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 355 

"With regard to pais, the word used by Justin Martyr, in his^ 
Second Apology, on which Dr. Wall and others so much rely, it 
is applied to persons of from twelve to tJiirty years of age in the 
New Testament. Jesus, at the age of twelve, and after he had 
risen from the dead, is called pais. Acts iv. 27. Eutychus, a 
young man, mentioned Acts xx. 12, is represented by the word 
'pais. So of others from twelve to twenty years old. 

Of the Greek Fathers of this era we have none other quoted 
by Dr. Wall or Dr. Miller. TertuUian is the first of the Latin 
writers who early in the third century mentions infant baptism. 
He does, indeed, name it ; but I have long since said, and no 
one has as yet presumed to refute it, that he opposes it as an in- 
novation. Dr. Miller says — " TertuUian, about two hundred 
years after the birth of Christ, is the first man of whom we read 
in ecclesiastical history, as speaking a word against infant bap- 
tism.^' Well, uncandid as this is, we must request our readers 
to remember that Dr. Miller says TertuUian spoke against it. 
But he says he is the j^r^i^ man that spoke against it. And who, 
we might ask, Was the first person that spoke for it ? Any one 
before TertuUian ? If any one, his name has not reached us ! 
But what is the professor's solution of this case? Why did 
TertuUian speak against it ? Hear him : — " TertuUian adopted 
the superstitious idea that baptism was accompanied with the 
remission of all past sins/'* And who of his predecessors or 
contemporaries did not teach the same "superstitious idea?'^ 
Who did not also, according to Dr. Wall, adopt a still more su- 
perstitious idea, that baptism and regeneration were convertible 
terms — perfect and complete equivalents ? — and that there was 
not one writer during the first four centuries that understood 
baptism as any thing else but regeneration ! ! And did not all 
of them, as well as TertuUian, teach "that sins committed after 
baptism were peculiarly dangerous?" These are Pedobaptist 
assertions — not ours. 

TertuUian' s views may be gathered from the extracts found 
in Wall's history of infant baptism. " They who administer 
baptism," says TertuUian, " are to know that it must not be 
given rashly." " * Give to every one that asketh thee,' has its 
proper subject, and relates to almsgiving ; but that command is 
rather here to be considered ; * Give not that which is holy to 

* Miller on Baptism, page 32. 



356 REVIEWS OP THE 

dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine ;* and that, * Lay 
hands suddenly on no man, neither be partakers of other 
men's sins.' Therefore according to every one's condition and 
disposition, and also their age, the delaying of baptism is more 
profitable, especially in the case of little children. For what 
need is there that the god-fathers should be brought into dan- 
ger ? because they may either fail of their promises by death, or 
they may be mistaken by a child's proving of wicked disposi- 
tion. Our Lord says, indeed, * Do not forbid them to come to 
me ;' therefore, let them come when they are grown up — let them 
come when they understands When they are instructed whither 
it is that they come, let them be made Christians, when 
they can know Christ. What need their guiltless age make 
such haste to the forgiveness of sins ? Men will proceed more 
warily in worldly goods ; and he that should not have earthly 
goods committed to him, yet shall have heavenly ! ! Let them 
know how to desire this salvation, that you may appear to have 
given it to one that asketh." I wonder not that any one who 
calmly and dispassionately reads even so much as we have 
quoted from TertuUian's writings, and more especially if he 
have patience to read so much of them as is found in Du Pin, 
or even Dr. Wall, should conclude with Richard Baxter, saying, 
" Yet again will I confess that the words of Tertullian and of 
Nazianzen show that it was a long time before all were agreed of 
the very time, or of the necessity of baptizing infants before any 
use of reason^ in case they were to live to maturity J^ 

Can any one think — I mean any one free from prejudice — 
that had infant baptism been an apostolic institution preached 
from the beginning, any men of learning in the age of Tertul- 
lian would have so written about it as here reported by his 
friends and the friends of that institution ? We cheerfully ad- 
mit the probability that infant immersion, god-fathers, infant 
communion, monkery, &c. &c. commenced about the times of 
Tertullian and St. Cyprian, in the first half of the third century. 
This will, however, appear still more evident from the decision 
of the Council of Carthage, composed of sixty-six bishops, which 
met Anno Domini 253, to deliberate on certain queries referred 
to it by Bishop Fidus ; one of which was, — " Whether an infant, 
before it was eight days old, might be baptized, if need required?'* 

We shall give a few extracts from this celebrated response 
of the Council to the query sent up to Carthage by Bishop 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 357 

Fidus : — " We read your letter, most dear brother, in which you 
write of one rector or priest, &c. But as to the case of infants : 
whereas you judge that they must not be baptized within two 
or three days after they are born ; and that the rule of circum- 
cision is to be obs.erved, so that none should be baptized and 
sanctified before the eighth day after he is born ; we were all in 
the assembly of the contrary opinion. We have judged that the 
grace and mercy of God are to be denied to no person that is 
born. For whereas our Lord in the gospel says, * The Son of 
Man came not to destroy men^s souls, or lives; but to save 
them :' as far as lies in us, no soul, if possible, is to be lost. 
For what is there deficient in him who has been once formed in 
the womb by the hands of God ?" — " All things that are made 
by God are perfect by the work and power of God their Maker. 
The Scripture gives us to understand the equality of the divine 
gift on all, whether infants or grown persons. Elisha, in his 
prayer to God, stretched himself on the infant son of the Shuna- 
mite woman who lay dead, in such a manner that his head, and 
face, and limbs, and feet were applied to the head, face, limbs, and 
feet of the child ;* which, if it be understood according to the 
quality of our body and nature, the infant could not hold 
measure with the full-grown man, nor its limbs fit and reach to 
his great ones. But in that place a spiritual equality, and such 
as is in the esteem of God, is intimated to us ; by which persons 
that are once made by God are alike and equal.'^ 

The remainder of this letter is as weak and childish as the 
specimen before us, and concludes with these words : — " It is 
not for us to hinder any person from baptism and the grace of 
God, who is merciful and kind and affectionate to all. To in- 
fants our help and the divine mercy are rather to be granted, 
because, by their weeping and wailing at their first entrance 
into the world, they do intimate nothing so much as that they 
implore compassion. ^^ 

Such was the wisdom, and learning, and good sense of the 
African council of sixty-six Bishops, who decreed that infants 
should be baptized as soon as born ; and that, too, in a. d. 253. 
From such a council who could expect a more sage conclusion 
or a higher authority than that of Elisha stretching himself down 
to the dimensions of an infant ! High authority, indeed, and is 

* Strange stretching, this ! We would rather say, contracting himself. 



358 REVIEWS OF THE 

only surpassed by the following passage, which, so far as argu- 
ment is concerned, embraces the remainder of the letter: — '*If 
the greatest offenders, and they that have grievously sinned 
against God before, have, when they afterward come to believe, 
forgiveness of their sins ; and no person is kept off from baptism 
and the grave ; how much less reason is there to refuse an in- 
fant, who, being newly born, has no sin, save that, being de- 
scended from Adam according to the flesh, he has from his very 
birth contracted the contagion of the death anciently threatened ; 
who comes for this reason more easily to receive forgiveness of 
sins, because they are not his own, but others' sins that are for- 
given him/' Such the philosophy, the reason, and the authority 
of the Council of Carthage, and such the character of the third 
century and its bishops ! An age and a people peculiarly quali- 
fied to introduce and ordain infant baptism. 

We will not weary our readers with any more such extracts 
from the men who afterwards plead for infant baptism. Nor 
do we at all deem it essential to trace the history of infant bap- 
tism or that of infant communion, of godfathers, and all the 
other appendages of this human tradition. We concede, with- 
out a demur, that, in the Greek and the Roman church, whether 
in Africa, Asia, or Europe, infant baptism, with its kindred ac- 
companiments of sponsors, the salt, the spittle, and the oil; 
together with monachism, with all its forms ; and virginity, with 
all its potency on earth and in heaven, not only existed, but in 
triumph reigned for more than twelve hundred years. Infant 
baptism, with its other accompaniments, has been gradually 
losing its power over the human mind ; and, in every conflict 
with those who repudiate it as a papal tradition, it has uni- 
formly fallen in public favour, and is ever making unsuccessful 
aggressions upon those who seek to find for it either precept or 
example in all the written records of Prophets and Apostles. 

Still, in every century from the times of Tertullian till now, 
there have been many witnesses for the Apostolic baptism. A 
host of learned and pious men have in all ages stood up as re- 
monstrants against the pretensions of those who sought for 
infant baptism any other warrant than the doctrines and com- 
mandments of men. A few notices of those distinguished men 
who, in word and deed, testified against it, are all that we have 
room for in these essays. 

Of distinguished men in the third century ^ the celebrated Bax- 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 859 

ter says, that "Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, who lived in 
the second and third centuries, do affirm that in the primitive 
times none were baptized but such as engaged themselves to 
obey him." Saint's Kest, 1st. ed., chap. 8. 

Fourth Century, — Jerome says, "The Lord commanded his 
Apostles that they should first instruct and teach all nations, 
and afterwards should baptize them that were instructed in the 
mysteries of the faith ; for it cannot be that the body should 
receive the ordinance of baptism before the soul has received the 
true faith.'' Jerome's Comment on Matt, xxvii. 19, 20. Atha- 
nasius, in his third sermon against the Arians, says, '* Our Sa- 
viour hath not simply commanded to baptize ; but first said teach, 
then baptize ; because true faith proceeds from teaching, and 
baptism rightly follows faith." See Merningus, part 2, p. 370. 

"Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, was baptized upon a profes- 
sion of his faith, and did afterwards assert for doctrine that 
none ought to be baptized but such." See Metaphrastes, 1. 1, 
chap. 30 ; and Mern. p. 336, as quoted by Junius. 

During this century, there were sundry councils and synods. 
The Council of Laodicea, of Neocesarea, and the synods of this 
time agreed in this, that "whosoever were to be baptized should 
give in their names, and then, after due examination, should be 
baptized. And not only great men, and even princes, converted 
from paganism, were baptized ; but even the sons and daugh- 
ters of believing parents were baptized when arrived at adult 
years." A clear proof that infant baptism had not yet become 
general; for the children of believing parents would certainly 
have been baptized, had any infants in ordinary cases been bap- 
tized. Amongst the vast numbers of the children of believers 
that were baptized in adult years, during this century, we shall 
mention a few men of renown. Basil the Great, son of a Chris- 
tian bishop, was baptized in the Jordan, when advanced in 
years. Gregory, son of Gregory Bishop of Nazianzen, was bap- 
tized at the age of twenty. Constantino the Great, a Briton 
born, and King of England, son of Helena, a zealous Christian, 
was well advanced in years before he was baptized. During his 
reign, most of his British troops were Christians, a. d. 320. 
Ambrose refused to be baptized till he was chosen Bishop of 
Milan. Chrysostom was born of believing parents, and was 
educated by Miletus, a bishop ; yet he was not baptized till the 
age of twenty-one. Hugo Grotius, while saying this of Chry- 



860 REVIEWS OP THE 

sostom, adds, ''Many of the Greeks, in every age, to this day, 
keep the custom of deferring the baptism of their little ones till 
they make a profession of their faith/' Erastus testifies that 
*' Jerome was born in the city of Shydon, of Christian parents; 
was brought up in the Christian religion, and was baptized in 
the thirtieth year of his age/' *' Austin, the son of the gra- 
cious Monica, being instructed in the faith, was not baptized till 
thirty/' See Osiander's Book, cent. 4, 1. 3, p. 371-380 ; also 
Nauclerus, a. d. 391. Historia Tripartita tells us, that "Theo- 
dosius, the emperor, was born in Spain, and his parents were 
both Christians ; that he was instructed in the Christian faith ; 
and, falling sick at Thessalonica, he was baptized by Achalis.'^ 
See Dr. Taylor, lib. Proph. p. 239. 

I cannot close the testimonies of the fourth century better 
than by presenting to the reader the words of Dr. Barlow, Doc- 
tor of the Chair at Oxford — a man eminent for learning. On 
reviewing the records of antiquity and the arguments of his 
Pedobaptist friends, in a letter to a friend, he says, "I do be- 
lieve and know that there is neither precept nor example for 
infant baptism, nor any just evidence for it for above 205 years 
after Christ ; that Tertullian condemns it as an unwarrantable 
practice. I have read what my learned friends. Dr. Hammond 
and Mr. Baxter, and others, say in the defence of it ; and I con- 
fess I wonder not a little that men of such great parts should 
Bay so much to so little purpose ; for I have not as yet seen 
any thing like an argument for it'' Thus far Doctor Barlow, 
Jun. 69. 

Fifth Century. — In this age, there were many public advo- 
cates of the true baptism. Chrysostom, whose baptism we men- 
tioned in the last century, in the fifth century publicly taught 
that "the time of grace (or when a man obtained grace) or con- 
version, was the only fit time for baptism, which," says he, 
** was the season in which the three thousand in Acts ii., and 
others afterwards, were baptized." See Magd. cent. 5, p. 368. 

Faustus Regiensis, a bishop in France, taught in this age, 
that '^the will and desire of the party that comes to be baptized 
are necessary." 

Evegrius says, that "they who have been instructed in the 
word of God were the proper subjects of baptism." See Mer- 
ningus, p. 421-425. 

Bixth Century, — Gregory says, "In baptism the elect receive 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 361 

the gift of the Spirit, whereby also their spirits or understand- 
ings are enlightened in the Scriptures, and that by faith in the 
death of Christ, by baptism, their sins are forgiven." " In this 
century, the Council of Agather decreed, that the articles of 
faith be first preached to the persons to be baptized, before 
they are baptized.'^ Vicecome's History^ p. 482. 

Seventh Century. — In this age, the Bracarens Council, in Spain, 
decreed, that "no adult persons but such as had been well 
instructed and examined, should be baptized.'' " The Council 
of Toletanus express the same import ; and we find that Pauli- 
nus baptized in the River Trent, in England, a great number 
of men and women." See Bead. 1. 2, chap. 16, cent. 7, p. 145. 
" In Egypt, in this century, the Christians departed from the 
faith of the church of Rome, placing it upon the Apostolic 
foundation, that the person should j^r^^ believe before he is bap- 
tized." Vice. 1. 9, chap. 3. 

Eighth Century. — Bede, who lived in this century, page 220, 
says, " Men are first to be instructed in the knowledge of the 
truth, then to be baptized as Christ has taught ; because that, 
without faith, it is impossible to please God." The learned 
Haime, on Matt, xxviii. 19, says, "In these words is set down 
the rule how to baptize — that is, that teaching should go before 
baptism; that Christ says. Teach all nations, then baptize: for he 
that is to be baptized must first be instructed to believe what he 
in baptism shall receive. In this century, the Council of Paris 
and that of Laodicea decreed that those who are to be baptized 
ought first to be instructed in the faith, and make a confession 
of it." 

Ninth Century. — Rabanus, chapter iv., says that "the cate- 
chism, which is the doctrine of faith, must go before baptism ; 
to the intent that he who is baptized may first learn the mys- 
teries of faith ; and," continues he, " the Lord Jesus anointed 
the eyes of him that was born blind, with clay made of spittle, 
before he sent him to the waters of Siloam, to signify that he 
that is to be baptized must first see, or be instructed in the faith 
concerning the incarnation of Christ. When he that is in- 
structed doth believe, then he is to be admitted to baptism, that 
he might know whom he afterwards ought and, in duty, is 
bound to serve." 

Albinus says, " Three things are visible in baptism — the body, 
the water, and the administrator ; and three things invisible-— 

31 



362 REVIEWS OP THE 

the soul, faith, and the Spirit of God, which are all joined by 
the word of God/' P. 220. 

Rabanus likewise observes, that "The adults were first to be 
instructed in the faith, and duly examined before they were 
baptized ; and that as Noah and his family were saved by water 
and the ark, so the faithful are saved by Christ and baptism/' 
P. 144. 

TentJi Century, — In this age, Smaragdo, on Matt, xxviii. 19, 
observes, "Men are to be taught in the faith, then after to be 
baptized therein ; for it is not enough that the body be bap- 
tized, but that the soul, by faith, j^r^^ receive the truth thereof/' 
P. 187. 

EleventJi Century, — Anselm says that, "Believers are bap- 
tized into the death of Christ, that they, believing his death 
and conforming thereto, may, as dying with him, live also with 
him/' P. 169. Again, says he, "Christian baptism is the 
washing of water into the word of life. Take away either the 
water or the word, baptism ceaseth.'' P. 116. " In this cen- 
tury, the Waldenses and Albigenses loudly asserted and exten- 
sively practised believer baptism.'' Twisk, Chron. 1. 11, a. d. 
1100, p. 423. "Peter Bruise, a learned author in Toulouse, 
France, and his numerous followers, were zealous asserters and 
practisers of baptism after faith and repentance." Dutch Mar, 
chap. 11. 

Twelfth Century, — Alburtus Magnus says, " The laver of bap- 
tism is not proper but to the illuminated and called, who can 
draw virtue from the death of Christ/' Page 413. Thomas 
Aquinas says that "in baptism God works inwardly, as he dis- 
penseth the ordinance outwardly ; there is not only a consecra- 
tion of the soul to God, but the body ; because the whole man, 
by baptism, is dedicated to God ; for by baptism we die to the 
life of sin, and begin to live a new life of grace." P. 424. " In 
this century there was a great spread of those who practised be- 
liever^s baptism." Twisk, Chron. 1. 13, pp. 528, 529. 

Thirteenth Century, — In this century, Jacob Merningus says 
that " he had in his hand, in the German tongue, a Confession 
of the Faith of the Baptists, called Waldenses, which asserts 
that in the beginning of Christianity there was no such thing as 
baptizing infants, and that their forefathers practised no such 
thing, as Johannes Bohemius writes in his second book ; and 
Merningus' History of Baptism, part 2d, page 736." Moreover, 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 863 

it is observed by many, that "this faith and practice made a 
prodigious spread through Poland, Lombardy, Germany, and 
Holland/' Montanus, p. 86. Merningus, p. 737. 

Fourteenth Century. — In addition to the evidence cited above, 
which also bears upon this century, as, indeed, the documents 
presented with respect to any century always have an important 
bearing upon that immediately succeeding, we find that " Carlos, 
Bishop of Meyland, did exhort the ministers under his charge 
that they should first teach the faith ; and that only upon a con- 
fession of faith and a good conversation they should administer 
baptism/' Merning. p. 740. The confession of the Thabotites, 
in the year 1431, confirms that in this century there were many 
Baptists, especially in Bohemia. They say, "We do from our 
hearts acknowledge that the ordinance of baptism is washing, 
which is performed with water, which, according to Christ^s 
words, doth hold out (i. e. in a figure) the washing of the soul 
from sin according to Christ's command." Matt, xxviii. 19. 
Merning. p. 743. 

Fifteenth Century. — In this century the Baptists spread amaz- 
ingly. Mern. p. 772. Twisk says, in his Chronology, page 930, 
that in the year 157, " the Waldenses, who were Baptists, were 
much spread in Hungary." That these Waldenses were Bap- 
tists, Montanus, Impress 2d, says that " the Waldenses, in the 
public declarations of their faith to the French king, a. d. 1521, 
assert in the strongest terms the baptizing of believers, and deny 
that of infants." Balthazer Lydia testifies that " at this time 
there were several churches in Thessalonica, in Greece, supposed 
to have continued successively from the Apostles' time, agreeing 
with the faith of the Waldenses." See B. L. Treatise 3, of the 
Waldenses. "Two persons were sent from the churches in 
Thessalonica to find some of the same faith with themselves ; 
and coming into Switzerland, they were taken prisoners and 
put into the castle of Passaw, who declared to many that they 
had in their care (at Thessalonica) the original of Paul's epis- 
tles, which he sent to them." Mern. page 739. 

Sixteenth Century. — It is scarcely necessary to continue the 
history farther down than this century, as almost every person 
knows that there were myriads of advocates for believer baptism 
in this century. I shall, however, mention one distinguished 
advocate of this cause, who flourished in this century. Jacob 
de Roor, a prisoner in Bruges, in Flanders, steadfastly owned 



864 REVIEWS OF THE 

and maintained as follows, viz. " That the baptism which the 
Apostles taught and practised must needs he after believing, be- 
cause it is for the burying of sin, the hath or evidence of regene- 
ration, the covenant of a Christian's life, the putting on the 
body of Christ, and planting into the true olive-tree Christ Jesus, 
and for the right entrance into the spiritual ark, whereof Christ 
Jesus is the builder/' 

From the preceding documents, a mere sample of what may 
be gleaned from the pages of ecclesiastical history, the observant 
reader will readily see how much credit is due to the Princeton 
professor as a lecturer on ecclesiastical history, when he says, 
**It is an undoubted fact that the people known in ecclesiastical 
history under the name of * Anabaptists,' who arose in Germany 
in the year 1552, were the very first body of people in the whole 
Christian world who rejected the baptism of infants on the prin- 
ciples now adopted by the Anti-Pedobaptist body." (Page 32.) 
Unless there be some premeditated oracular ambiguity in this 
expression, which it would be uncharitable to suppose, one could 
not easily make an assertion more unjustifiable or insupporta- 
ble, as the documents I have given fully show, and to which 
many more might be added. 

I have drawn upon my labours and researches some twenty- 
seven years ago for the above items, which, with much toil and 
more leisure than I can now command, I collected from reliable 
sources, for a tract of some 70 pages, titled " Strictures on Three 
Letters respecting the Debate at Mount Pleasant, published in the 
Presbyterian Magazine: Philadelphia, 1821: — by Rev. Dr. Sa- 
muel Ralston, D.D.'* These Strictures, although before that Rev. 
Doctor and others of his party now for more than a quarter of 
a century, have never been responded to, so far as I have learned ; 
and the facts and documents here furnished stand as yet uncon- 
tradicted by the Pedobaptist world. 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 365 



CHAPTER V. 

RETIEW OP PROFESSOR MILLER OP PRINCETON ;' DR. TVALL, VICAR 
OP SHOREM IN KENT, AND OTHERS. 

It is presumed that quite enough has been said on the main 
pillars of infant baptism — its antiquity and generality. On the 
same foundation stand five of the seven sacraments of Roman 
Catholicism, together with a bachelor priesthood, and the para- 
mount virtues and powers of celibacy and the monastic life. 
We have also shown, I hope, to the entire satisfaction of every 
honest mind — of every inquirer after truth — that there has al- 
ways been, even in the most degenerate days, a valiant band of 
saints and martyrs bearing testimony against these encroach- 
ments of *' THE MAN OF siN^^ upon the institutions of the Law- 
giver and King of the Christian people. From all of which do- 
cumentary argument and proof, we learn how little credit is due 
to those most reputable " Doctors of modern Divinity'^ who en- 
deavour to produce the impression that the " German Anabap- 
tists" of the 16th century were the first people in the world that 
either opposed infant baptism, or assumed the ground on which 
the present Immersionists, commonly called Baptists, raise their 
banners and collect a community for the Lord. 

Still, that no point in this controversy may be wholly over- 
looked or disparaged through apparent ignorance or neglect, I 
think it expedient to say a few words upon the ancient, though 
not primitive, institution of the catechumens. By the catechu- 
mens we mean those children admitted into the schools of the 
ancient church for the purpose of being prepared to make an in- 
telligent profession of Christianity. That all our readers may 
have an impartial history of them, I quote the whole article 
concerning them from Buck^s Theological Dictionary, which I 
find generally quoted in Dictionaries and Encyclopedias of more 
modern date : — 

" Catechumens, the lowest order of Christians in the primitive 
church. They had some title to the common name of Christians, 
being a degree above pagans and heretics, though not consum- 
mated by baptism. They were admitted to the state of catechu- 
mens by the imposition of hands and the sign of the cross. 
The children of believing parents were admitted catechumens 
as soon as ever they were capable of instruction ; but at what 

31* 



366 REVIEWS OF THE 

age those of heathen parents might be admitted is not so clear. 
As to the time of their continuance in this state, there were no 
general rules fixed about it ; but the practice varied according 
to the difference of times and places, and the readiness and pro- 
ficiency of the catechumens themselves. There vrere four orders 
or degrees of catechumens. The first were those instructed pri- 
vately without the church, and kept at a distance, for some 
time, from the privilege of entering the church, to make them 
the more eager and desirous of it. The next degree were the 
candidates, so called for their being admitted to hear sermons 
and the Scriptures read in the church, but were not allowed to 
partake of the prayers. The third sort of catechumens were the 
genuflectentes, so called because they received imposition of 
hands kneeling. The fourth order was the competentes et electi ; 
denoting the immediate candidates for baptism, or such as were 
appointed to be baptized the next approaching festival ; before 
which, strict examination was made into their proficiency, un- 
der the several stages of catechetical exercises. 

" After examination, they were exercised for twenty days to- 
gether, and were obliged to fasting and confession. Some days 
before baptism they went veiled ; and it was customary to touch 
their ears, saying, EpJipJiatha, — i. e.. Be opened ; as also to anoint 
their eyes with clay: both ceremonies being in imitation of our 
Saviour's practice, and intended to signify to the catechumens 
their condition both before and after their admission into the 
Christian church.^' 

If, then, infant baptism had been the custom of the primitive 
church, I ask these hoary doctors of modern divinity, how could it 
have happened that schools were so early, even in their " ancient, 
church,^' established for preparing children for baptism by induct- 
ing them into the knowledge of the facts, precepts, and promises 
of Christianity? Can any one of these defenders of the high 
antiquity of infant baptism give a good reason for such schools ? 
Yes, says one of the most ingenious of them, they were insti- 
tuted for Jieaihen children ! Whether to ascribe this dogma to 
his temerity or to his intractability, I know not; but this I 
know, that he has read ecclesiastical history to little account who 
assumes this attitude on this question. Surely every mere tyro 
in ecclesiastic learning remembers the case of the celebrated 
St. Augustine, born in Tagasta, 354; who, by "his Christian 
mother Monica, was placed among the catechumens ;'' so that, 
says Du Pin, "falling dangerously sick, he earnestly desired to 
be baptized ;'' but was not then, till better educated ! ! For, ac- 
cording to the rule of the church, " catechumens were not to be 
prayed for who died without baptism.^' 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 867 

Dr. Mosheim assigns to these catechumens a place in the in- 
stitutions of the first century. His words are — 

''Whoever acknowledged Christ as the Saviour of mankind, 
and made a solemn profession of his confidence in him, was 
immediately baptized and received into the church. But, in 
process of time, when the church began to flourish, and its 
members to increase, it was thought prudent and necessary to 
divide Christians into two orders, distinguished by the names 
of believers and catechumens. The former were those who had 
been solemnly admitted into the church by baptism, and in con- 
sequence thereof were instructed in all the mysteries of religion, 
had access to all the parts of divine worship, and were authorized 
to vote in the ecclesiastical assemblies. The latter were such 
as had not been dedicated to God and Christ by baptism ; and 
were, therefore, admitted neither to the public prayers, nor to 
the holy communion, nor to the ecclesiastical assemblies.^' 

Again he says — 

"In the earliest times of the church, all who professed firmly 
to believe that Jesus was the only Kedeemer of the world, and 
who, in consequence of this profession, promised to live in a 
manner conformable to the purity of his holy religion, were im- 
mediately received among the disciples of Christ. This was all 
the preparation for baptism then required ; and a more accurate 
instruction in the doctrines of Christianity was to be adminis- 
tered to them after their receiving that sacrament.'^ 

Again — "The methods of instructing the catecJiumens dijffered 
according to their various capacities. Those in whom the 
natural force of reason was small, were taught no more than 
the fundamental principles and truths, which are, as it were, 
the basis of Christianity. Those, on the contrary, whom their 
instructors judged capable of comprehending, in some measure, 
the whole system of Divine truth, were furnished with superior 
degrees of knowledge; and nothing was concealed from them 
which could have any tendency to render them firm in their 
profession and to assist them in arriving at Christian per- 
fection. The care of instructing such was committed to persons 
who were distinguished by their gravity and wisdom, and also 
by their learning and judgment. And from hence it comes that 
the ancient doctors generally divide their flock into two classes ; 
the one comprehending such as were solidly and thoroughly 
instructed; the other, those who were acquainted with little 
more than the first principles of religion ; nor do they deny that 
the methods of instruction applied to these two sorts of persons 
were extremely different. 

" The Christians took all possible care to accustom their childrea 
to the study of the Scriptures, and to instruct them in the doctrines 



368 REVIEWS OP THE 

of their holy religion : and schools were everywhere erected for 
this purpose, even from the very commencement of the Christian 
church.'^ 

Is it not clear, then, Pedobaptist historians being witness, 
that pains were taken by Christian parents, even before the first 
century, to prepare their children for baptism? Were there, in 
their judgment, two baptisms— one for speechless babes, and 
one for educated children and adults? Or does any one assume 
the absurd position that the catechumens were the young or old 
children of unbelieving Jews and pagans? This they must 
assume, or admit that the children of Christian parents were 
taught before they were baptized. 

Speaking of the third and fourth centuries, as respects the 
growing custom of baptizing infants, the learned historian J. C. 
J. Giesler says, ^*The custom of considering certain doctrines 
and rites as mysteries would naturally have some effect on the 
mode of admission to the church. Baptism was preceded by a 
long preparatory course, during which the catechumens {cate- 
cJioumenoi) were gradually led from general religious and moral 
truths to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, by teachers ap- 
pointed for the purpose, (cafecMstes,) and must pass through 
various grades (audientes, geniijiectentes, competentes) before 
they were deemed fit to be actually admitted. This course 
usually occupied several years, and often the catechumens 
voluntarily deferred their baptism as long as possible, on account 
of the remission of sins by which it was accompanied. Hence, 
it was often necessary to baptize the sick, and in that case, 
sprinkling [haptismus clinicorum, ton Minikon) was substituted 
for the usual rite. The baptism of infants became now more 
common. The use of exorcism is distinctly mentioned, and all 
who had been baptized, even the children, partook of the eucha- 
rist.^' "We might quote "Waddington and other ecclesiastical 
historians on our shelves, to the same effect; but this would be 
more for display than for edification. It is, we think, already 
proved, from this institution alone, that infant baptism was not 
from the beginning. 

From all the premises before us, may we not, then, safely 
affirm that there is no divine precept, no approved example, no 
authority for infant baptism in the Holy Oracles or in the his- 
tory of the primitive church ? On the contrary, there are — 1st. 
in the faith and repentance often required; 2d, in the import of 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. S69 

the institution itself; 3d, in the schools and discipline established 
in and by the ancient church for the instruction and preparation 
of children for the proper understanding and believing reception 
of the ordinance — the clearest indications that there is no more 
divine authority for baptizing an infant than for giving it the 
consecrated wafer, the holy oil of Komanism, or the sacred me- 
morials of a Saviour's dying love ? 

With these premises before the candid reader, vre ask him 
whether he can repose with a full acquiescence in the tenth and 
last argument of Dr. Miller, and that of his still more learned 
predecessor, Dr. Wall — viz. that ^HJie Jiistory of the Christian 
church from the apostolic age furnishes an argument of irresistible 
force in favour offhe Divine authority of infant baptism F' Great 
must be the implicit confidence of any man, we think, or great 
must be his ignorance of church history, who can lend his assent 
to an assumption as gratuitous and unwarrantable as the plea 
for auricular confession, transubstantiation, or extreme unction. 

I am now, and have been long of the opinion that these 
reverend gentlemen who talk so easily and so positively of 
church history and its faithful records, are much better read in 
Roman Catholic church history than in Christian antiquity or 
the true history of the hosts of remonstrants that never gave 
their assent to the haughty, imperious, and baseless assump- 
tions of "the man of sin,'^ whose church history is but that of 
his own lofty pretensions to a regular, hereditary, ecclesiastical 
descent from St. Peter and that church in the imperial city, of 
which they say he was the first prelate as well as the chief 
founder; the whole of which story, though gravely told a million 
of times, and fully believed by a thousand million of human 
kind, during twelve successive centuries, is as grand a legend 
or as magniloquent a tale as that of the Arabian Nights, or 
that of the more plausible Eobinson Crusoe. 

But that my readers may hear Dr. Miller in his own grave 
conclusions, and that I may give him the last word, and lest 
any one should think that I have done him any injustice, I 
shall quote directly his own epitome of the strength of his own 
evidence. It is in the words following, to wit: — 

" Such is an epitome of the direct evidence in favour of infant 
baptism. To me, I acknowledge, it appears nothing short of 
demonstration. The invariable character of all Jehovah's deal- 
ings and covenants with the children of men; his express ap- 



370 REVIEWS OF THE 

pointment, acted upon for two thousand years by the ancient 
church; the total silence of the New Testament as to any re- 
tractation or repeal of this privilege ; the evident and repeated 
examples of family baptism in the apostolic age ; the indubita- 
ble testimony of the practice of the whole church on the Pedo- 
baptist plan, from the time of the Apostles to the sixteenth 
century, including the most respectable witnesses for the truth 
in the dark ages ; all conspire to establish on the firmest foun- 
dation the membership, and the consequent right to baptism, 
of the infant seed of believers. If here be no divine warrant, 
we may despair of finding it for any institution in the church 
of God/' 

I do not think it necessary to proceed to an examination of all 
the alleged authorities for infant baptism adduced from the last 
half of the third century, and from the fourth and fifth centuries. 
These are all too far ofi" from the apostolic age. Besides, in the 
game period I find almost all the errors of the ancient church 
appearing in well defined outlines, explicit enough for the 
humblest intellect. 

It may, however, be useful to some minds, easily influenced 
by even a spurious antiquity, to state a few undeniable facts, 
and to make a few observations on the testimonies pressed 
upon our attention by Dr. Wall and his too credulous and san- 
guine admirers. I shall begin with the celebrated Council of 
Carthage, a. d. 253, and its presiding genius, St.^Cyprian, with 
his sixty-six bishops. H. Danverse, in his book on Baptism, 
1674, alleges, that he '* would rather believe that these things'' 
(touching the baptism of infants eight days old) "had been 
foisted into his writings by that villanous, cursed generation, 
that so horribly abused the writings of most of the ancients, 
than to suppose Cyprian and his bishops so ignorant as to de- 
cide in favour of baptizing on the eighth day.'' I see no need 
for such a solution of the case: for other sayings and decisions 
of this Council of Carthage were equally childish. For example : 
"We judge," says he, "that no person is to be hindered from 
obtaining the grace of remission, because they are not his own, 
but others' sins, that are forgiven him" — that is, original sin 
or the sins of his parents are forgiven him. A sage argument, 
truly, for infant baptism ! 

But the learned Grotius takes other ground, and denies that 
there is any authority from any council for infant baptism pre- 
vious to the Council of Carthage, held in the year 418. He 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 871 

argues against the universality of infant baptism even in the 
third century. Besides, Dr. Wall himself admits that some of 
the reasons given by these "Fathers/^ in support of the alleged 
decrees of the African Council, "are weak and frivolous." 

Were I challenged to the task, as a matter of consequence, to 
take the whole collation and authors of the third, fourth, and 
fifth centuries, adduced by Dr. Wall, and to argue from them 
against the assumption that infant baptism was from the begin- 
ing, I would, with much confidence of a successful issue, very 
cheerfully undertake it. Nothing in the form of circumstantial 
reasoning could, to my mind, be more conclusive against him 
than his own authorities, in the hand of a skilful and competent 
reasoner. I will give only a sample or two of his authorities, 
and of the logical application of them to this efiect. He quotes 
the letter of the Council of Carthage, a. d. 253, addressed to 
Fidus, in response to the interrogatory, " Whether an infant^ 
before it was eight days old, might he baptized, if need required T' 
Fidus was, it seems, against this practice. The Council are in 
favour of it: for what reasons? 1st. "Because the Son of Man 
came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.'^ 2d. "Be- 
cause, as far as lies in us, no soul is to be lost.'V "For it is 
written, To the clean all things are cleanJ^ 4th. " Because the 
eighth day, that is next to the Sabbath day, was to be the day 
on which the Lord was to rise from the dead, and quicken us 
and give us the spiritual circumcision.'^ 5th. "Because Peter 
said. The Lord has shown me that no person is to be called 
common or unclean.'' 6th. " Because they are not his own, but 
others' sins, that are forgiven him." " Therefore, it is not for 
us to hinder any person from baptism and the grace of God, 
who is merciful and kind and afiectionate to all."^ So reason 
St. Cyprian and his sixty-six bishops. Not one scripture is 
quoted by way of authority. No appeal is made to scripture 
precept, precedent, or even to the history of the church. Now, 
can any one, free from prejudice, imagine that if infant baptism 
had been from the beginning a primitive, apostolic usage, such 
a superannuated, dotardly affair as this Carthage decision could 
possibly have occurred, or that such a question should have 
been debated as late as the last half of the third century ? I 
wonder not that such men as "the great Grotius" should have 

* Wall's History of Infant Baptism, yol. i., pp. 129-132. 



872 REVIEWS OP THE 

argued against the universal prevalence of infant baptism even 
so late as the fourth century, from the very authorities which 
are urged in proof of its apostolic origin and authority. 

Concerning the sixth canon of the Council of Neocesarea, 
passed a. d. 314, which saith, "A woman with child may be 
baptized when she pleases. For the mother in this matter com- 
municates nothing to the child : because, in the profession, every 
one's own [or peculiar] resolution is declared, [or because every 
one's resolution is declared to be peculiar to himself.]" I am 
of the same opinion with Grotius, who says of it, "How much 
soever the commentators draw it to another sense, it is plain 
that the doubt concerning the baptizing women great with child, 
was for that reason because the child might seem to be baptized 
together with the mother, and a child was not wont to be bap- 
tized but upon its own will and profession.'' Grotius quotes 
Balsamon and Zonaras, of the twelfth century, as interpreting 
this canon as he does, for which he has good authority. But 
on these matters I lay no stress whatever. They only show that 
learned and very distinguished men, not Baptists either, concur 
with us in repudiating the decrees of councils as evidence that 
infant baptism was fully established in their days, or that it was 
from the beginning. 

After describing the preparation for receiving baptism, as 
respects the state of mind of the recipient of it, St. Gregory 
Nazianzen says, " Some may suppose this to hold in the case of 
those who can desire baptism. What say you to those that are 
as yet infants, and are not in a capacity to be sensible either of 
the grace or the miss of it ? Shall we baptize them too ? Yes, 
by all means, if danger make it requisite. For it is better that 
they be sanctified without their own sense of it, than that they 
should die unsealed and uninitiated. And a ground of this to us 
is circumcision, given on the eighth day, which was a typical seal, 
or baptism, and was practised on those that had no use of rea- 
son, as also the anointing of the door-posts, which preserved the 
first-born by things that had no sense." "As for us," (whom 
danger of death does not threaten,) "I give my opinion that 
they should stay three years or thereabouts, when they are 
capable to hear and answer some of the holy words, and 
though they do not perfectly understand the words, yet they 
form them, and that you then sanctify them in soul and body 



1 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 373 

with the great sacrament of initiation."* This needs no com- 
ment. 

At this period, a. d. 360, it is very evident that infant baptism 
wa^ still in debate ; and no one as yet presumes to appeal to the 
history of the church from the beginning. This may be made 
still more evident from the words of the great Basil, his con- 
temporary. He says, *' There is a time for sleep, a time for 
watching, a time of war, a time of peace ; but any time of one^s 
life is proper for baptism ; yet the most proper time is Easter/' 
Again, he says, "Do you demur, and put it off, when you have 
been from a child catechised in the word ? Are you not got 
acquainted with the truth ? Having been always learning it, 
are you not come to the knowledge of it ? A seeker all your 
life long; a considerer till you are old. When will you be 
made a Christian ? When shall we see you become one of us ? 
You do not know what change to-morrow may bring." This is 
a very striking passage ; and, notwithstanding the assertion of 
Dr. Wall, that these were the children, not of Christians, but of 
unbaptized pagans, I must think that amongst these were the 
children of Christians ; else, I ask, how could he say, "Pbw have 
been from a child catechised in the word .'" Did pagans so bring 
up their children ? Did they teach them that the Bible was the 
book of God ? Did they introduce them to a Saviour in whom 
they did not believe ? This passage from Basil is alone suffi- 
cient to show that, in the fourth century, infant baptism was any 
thing but universal. 

To Basil, we shall add a quotation from St. Chrysostom: "The 
catechumens being of this mind," (having an aversion to a 
godly life,) "to take no care of a godly life; and those that are 
baptized, some of them, forasmuch as they were children when 
they received it, and some, for that they received it in a fit of 
sickness, having put it off to that time, and having no mind to 
live godly, show no good inclination. And they that received 
it in their health show but very little ; having been for the pre- 
sent zealously affected, afterward, even they let their fire of zeal 
go out." So spoke Chrysostom, a. d. 380. 

We are now brought down to the era of the Pelagian contro- 



* St. Gregory Nazianzen, as quoted Iby Dr. Wall, vol. i. p. 177. The Greek for the 
sacrament of initiation, is, rcj (xeyaXo) yLvarripio} rrjs reXetoxrecuf, rather the great 
mystery of perfection or initiation. 



374 REVIEWS OP THE 

versy, to the commencement of the fifth century, and till this 
time we have no decree of any council, nor declaration of any 
distinguished author that, fairly construed, could induce us to 
think that infant baptism was practised from the beginning, or 
that it had become universal. No one appears even disposed to 
trace it up to the apostolic age ; but to assign for it some other 
reason or authority, doctrinal or inferential. It seems, indeed, 
all the while struggling against objections, and finding in cir- 
cumcision, or expediency, or in the opinion of some distin- 
guished persons, a support for itself — evidently wanting the seal 
and the authority of apostolic sanction, either in the form of 
precept or example. 

We know no good reason for either listening to, or examining, 
the conflicts of St. Austin and St. Jerome against Pelagius and 
Caelestius, on original sin, and their respective allusions to bap- 
tism for remission of sins ; or the reasons urged for and against 
its application to infants according to their respective theories 
and hypotheses. They but reiterate the dogmas and decrees of 
their own times — the decisions of fathers and councils, with 
their own assertions and opinions. 

As a matter of curiosity, however, we will quote a passage or 
two from Dr. WalFs History of Infant Baptism, setting forth 
the views of the most orthodox of all the great fathers, the de- 
fenders of the faith and traditions of the true church, as opposed 
to the equally distinguished heterodox and heretical Pelagius, 
who is quoted as affirming that "men slander me, as if I denied 
the sacrament of baptism to infants, or did promise the king- 
dom of heaven to some persons without the redemption of 
Christ ; which is a thing that I never heard, no, not even any 
wicked heretic say.''"^ "Who is there so ignorant — who can be 
so impious as to hinder infants from being baptized and born 
again in Christ, and to make them miss of the kingdom of 
heaven ; since our Saviour has said that none can enter into the 
kingdom of heaven that is not born again of water and the 
Holy Spirit ? Who is there so impious as to refuse to an infant, 
of what age soever, the common redemption of mankind, and 
to hinder him that is born to an uncertain life from being born 
again to an everlasting and certain life ?^^t 

Pelagius, in all this, was verbally most orthodox : for all the 

* Wall, vol. i. p. 236. f Ibid. p. 450. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 875 

church, with the great St. Austin, believed and taught infant 
baptism for the remission of sin original. Austin said of the 
Pelagians, "Beset both with the authority of God^s word, and 
with the usage of the church that was of old delivered to it, 
and has been since kept by it in the baptizing of children, that 
they dare not deny that infants are baptized for forgiveness of 
sins, and that it must not be supposed that the church does 
this in any trickish or deceitful meaning ; but since what is 
acted is acted seriously, that which is spoken must be supposed 
to be really done.'' 

But adds St. Austin, although Pelagius in this speaks accord- 
ing to the true church, " The Pelagians do not yield that infants 
are baptized for the remission of sins in such a sense as that 
any sins are forgiven to them who, .they say, have none,'' — 
namely, infants; "but that they, though they be without sin,'^ 
(^. e, original sin,) "yet are baptized with that baptism by 
which is granted forgiveness of sins to all that have any."^ 
Concerning this concession of Pelagius to the orthodox St. Aus- 
tin, Dr. Wall says, "There will ever be this difference between 
a man of sense and a thick-skulled man — that the former, if he 
find himself gravelled, will, at least, have the modesty to give 
ov§r talking. Pelagius, after he was brought to this contradic- 
tion, kept silence, and we hear no more of him."t 

So, then, it appears that Pelagius, St. Austin, and Dr. Wall 
agree, first, in infant baptism ; and secondly, in pretence the first, 
and in sincerity the last two, believed in the baptism of in- 
fants for the remission of original sin ; and that without either 
faith or repentance on their part. This, no doubt, was the mys- 
tic charm of infant baptism, and its passport into the Catholic 
faith of all that taught or believed infant damnation for original 
sin, or because of simple descent from a fallen and condemned 
progenitor. 

Indeed, Dr. Wall strongly affirms that St. Austin, and the 
orthodox with him, "held as certain that children which are 
baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly 
saved;" "for," continues Dr. Wall, "St. Austin says in these 
last words that *he that does not believe this' — that baptized 
children dying in infancy are undoubtedly saved — Hs an inji- 
deiy^ "Austin plainly supposes," says Dr. Wall, "that without 

* Wall, TOl. i. p. 454. t Il>id. p. 454, 



876 REVIEWS OF THE 

baptism they would be liable to eternal damnation because of 
original sin/'* 

** Austin did not think/' says Dr. Wall, '^nor pretend that 
infants that are baptized have, in any proper sense, faith or re- 
pentance, or conversion of heart, &c. How much soever he is- 
here pressed with the difficulty of explaining the reasons why 
godfathers answer in the child's name — * He does believe' — he 
does not, for all that, fly to the justifying of so great a paradox 
as to say that the child does indeed, in a proper sense, under- 
stand, believe, or disbelieve any thing. He shows the words 
are true in a sacramental sense, but does not maintain that they 
are so in a proper one. Nay, he plainly yields that they are 
not: he grants that infants cannot as yet either believe with the 
heart or confess with the mouth. And when, at other times, he 
argues that infants, after they are baptized, are no longer to be 
counted either among the infidels or catechumens, but the fideles 
or credenteSj (believers;) yet still he means and explains himself 
as he does here — * that they are constituted fideles, not by that 
fe/ith which consists in the will of believers, but by the sacra- 
ment of faith.' He holds, indeed, that the Holy Spirit does 
do offices for the infant and is in the infant. You see here his 
words : the regenerating spirit is one in these that bring the 
child, and in the child that is brought: and in that part of the 
epistle which I left out because of the length, he says, * The 
water affording outwardly the sacrament of the grace, and the 
Spirit operating inwardly the benefit of the grace, loosing the 
bond of guilt, &c., do regenerate.' But he supposes the infants 
to be merely passive, and not to know, understand, or co-operate 
any thing themselves." "We affirm, therefore, that the Holy 
Spirit dwells in baptized infants, though they know it not: for 
after the same manner they know him not, though he be in them, 
as they know not their own soul : the reason whereof, which 
they cannot yet make use of, is in them, as a spark raked 
up, which will kindle as they grow in years." Dr. Wall, pp. 
276, 277, 278. 

Thus believed, wrote, and taught the revered and admired 
Saint Austin, the beau ideal and prototype of the justly cele- 
brated John Calvin. I have given Dr. Wall's translation of the 
original Latin, lying before me, that I might not be supposed to 

* Wall, Tol. i. p. 274. 



ADVOCATES OP fNTANT BAPTISM. 877 

have given a single tint or shade to the views of the great patron 
of infant baptism. With such views of baptism as those here 
delineated, professed by orthodox and heterodox, bj catholics 
and heretics, no one need wonder at the popularity of the rite, 
its wide diffusion, or the tenacity of its hold on the minds and 
affections of a too credulous and servile people. 

We have considered every thing extant, appealed to by its 
advocates, in Old Testament and New — every thing alleged 
from church history, in the form of "Apostolic Fathers,'^ 
Greek Fathers, distinguished writers, ** decrees of Synods and 
Councils,'^ &c. &c., down to the period when "the man of sin^' 
arrives at full maturity, and, with his crown and mitre, his 
shepherd's crook, his crosier and sword spiritual, proclaims 
himself Pontifex Maximus, "the Prince of the Apostles,^^ 
"the Vicar of Christ,'^ and "the Head of the Church.^^ 

From this period down, we can find, as we have already 
shown, a host of distinguished men in every age, with their 
scattered communities — Mountaineers or Piedmontese — bearing 
witness for the Apostolic Institutions, and against the haughty 
and insolent assumptions of the Koman Pontiff, exalting him- 
self above all the gods of earth and objects of human fear, sitting 
in the temple of God, assuming to be his Vicegerent, claiming 
for himself a reverence and an adoration due to God alone. 
He, indeed, has even aimed, and successfully, " to change times 
and laws'^ and usages inimical to his own claims and pre- 
tensions. Leaving the youth of the Christian profession to the 
necessity of making a personal application and a personal pro- 
fession of the faith before initiation by baptism, was by no 
means so favourable to the rapid growth and worldly aggrand- 
izement of his church, as the universal baptism of infants as 
soon as born. The Koman hierarchy never was in favour of 
much thinking or examination on the part of its population. 
The clergy will think for them, if the people will only faithfully 
believe and serve them. I need not, then, trace through the 
sixth century the still more rapid progress of this rite. It never 
was, however, catholic — that is, universal. To pursue it farther 
in this direction would be but waste of time and prodigality 
of life. 



32* 



S78 REVIEWS 'of the 



CHAPTER VI. 

REYIEW OF DR. KURTZ AND REY. MR. HALL. 

In our preceding reviews, we have already attended to a 
portion of their plea drawn from the Jewish institution, or 
from the supposed identity of the Jewish and Christian institu- 
tions. But what remain are a few passages selected from the 
apostolic writings^ almost universally alleged by Pedobaptist 
writers in favour of infants, and which have had more influence 
on the .imperfectly instructed readers of the New Testament 
than any other arguments urged by the advocates of this 
ancient rite. 

The first of these is found in the discourses of our Lord as 
reported by some of the Evangelists. It is in the following 
words: — "Then were there brought unto him little children, that 
he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples 
rebuked them. But Jesus said, Sufibr little children, and forbid ''■ 
them not, to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.^^ 
Matt. xix. 13, 14. This important incident is also reported by 
Mark, and in the words following, to wit: — "And they brought 
young children to him, that he should touch them ; and his dis- 
ciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, 
he was much displeased, and said unto them, Sufier the little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not : for of such is the 
kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you. Whosoever shall not 
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter 
therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon 
them, and blessed them.'' Mark x. 13-16. So important is 
this incident, that it is also noticed by Luke in the words follow- 
ing, viz. "And they brought unto him also infants, that he 
would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked •' 
them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is 
the kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you. Whosoever shall 
not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise 
enter therein.'' Luke xviii. 15-17. 

We have given the common version of this important incident, 



ADVOC AT^EiS OP' INFANT BAPTISM. 379* 

because this is due to those who argue from it, and because it 
gives to them all the advantages they can claim. 

The Jirst point made on this passage is, that it is thrice re- 
peated in the Nevr Testament. 

The second is, that the inspired writers did not use the word 
pais, but paidion; because, as they allege, the former word 
(pais) indicates a young man and a servant of mature age and 
reason; whereas the latter (paidion) denotes an infant, a very 
young child, a speechless babe. So also the word brephos is 
used once in Luke. 

The third point is, that the Lord declared the kingdom of God to' 
be composed of such. Therefore, infants have a right to baptism 
and to consequent admission into the kingdom of God, or the New 
Testament church. That I have done justice to the Pedobaptists, 
I will quote Rev. Edwin Hall, A. M., of Connecticut — 1810 — 
one of the most recent and learned writers on the subject: — 

"Some parents once brought little children (infants, says 
Luke, xviii. 15) to Christ, that he should lay his hands on them 
and bless them. His disciples forbade them. They understood 
that Christ's kingdom was to rest upon faith in the soul, and 
upon the intelligent obedience of men to his precepts ; but how 
could children have this faith or this knowledge ? They appear 
to have come to the same conclusion concerning bringing little 
children to Christ that he might touch them, that many in these' 
days arrive at concerning the baptism of little children: — ^What 
good can it do to an unconscious babe?' At all events, they 
forbade these parents to bring their infants to Christ for this 
purpose. But Christ rebuked them ; he called the little children 
to him ; he took them in his arms ; he blessed them ; he said, 
' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' He meant, by the king- 
dom of heaven, either his earthly church or his heavenly ; it 
matters not which, for the argument. If the heavenly church 
is, in part, made up of such, then this was a sufficient reason 
for Christ why he should take them in his arms and bless them, 
and rebuke those who would forbid them to be brought to him. 
It is the very reason that he alleged : and he himself drew these ' 
conclusions from the reason. What an argument for bringing 
little children to Christ now — that he may seal them as his 
own; and that visibly, as he did when he took them in his 
arms ! But if by * kingdom of heaven^ he meant his earthly 
church, then the argument is at an end : they are to be baptized 
on this express warrant. 

" Those who wish to prevent this passage from bearing on 
the question at issue, say, that by the words ^ofsucW our Lord^ 



880 REVIEWS OF THE 

meant — not of such infants, but of such 'simple-hearted and 
humble persons' is the kingdom of heaven. This would be a 
good reason why ' simple-hearted and humble persons' should 
not be forbidden to come to Christ ; — but the fact that ^ simple- 
hearted and humble' adults belong to the kingdom of God, is 
no reason why Christ should take infants in his arms and 
bless them. 

" It is said, we forget that Jesus did not baptize them. No, we 
do not forget that * Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples.' 
It is not necessary for us to assert or to suppose that these in- 
fants were baptized at all. Christ's disciples were sent at first 
to preach, not a redemption completed, but to preach, saying, 
* The kingdom of heaven is at hand J Their final commission 
was after the resurrection of our Lord ; and at that time he in- 
stituted his baptism ; which appears to be essentially different 
from the baptism practised before. The disciples of Christ bap- 
tized newly made disciples before this, but it seems to have 
been John's * baptism of repentance,' Acts xix. 4, and not the 
baptism instituted by Christ as the new seal of his covenant. 
Grant it, if our brethren please, that these infants were not bap- 
tized. This conduct of Christ, and this rebuke which he admi- 
nistered to those who would forbid infants, would at least teach 
his disciples no more to reject infants from the blessings of the 
Christian religion, under the notion that infants cannot believe. 
It would teach them no more to forbid parents to bring them to 
Christ for his blessing. It would teach them to be cautious how 
they forbade infants from the privileges which God had char- 
tered to them in his covenant. It was designed to teach how 
Christ regarded infants ; and the remembrance of this would 
necessarily bear upon the interpretation which they would give 
with regard to the application of the new seal, whether to apply 
it to infants or not." 

This is justly regarded an important incident reported by 
three of the four Evangelists. But as it was spoken before 
Christian baptism was instituted, it can have no logical nor 
rational bearing on that subject. 1st. And, indeed, the avowed 
object of those who brought these children to the Saviour is de- 
clared to be not to receive an ordinance, but to obtain a blessing. 
Jesus did lay his hands upon them and bless them, or pray for 
them ; and, therefore, the intention of those who brought them 
was gained ; which was not baptism, but a blessing. 

But, in the second place, as to the words used to indicate the 
age of those children, they are alleged to be terms indicative of 
perfect infancy, such as bi^ephos and paidion. But while these 
terms do sometimes indicate very young children, they are also . 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 881 

used to represent those of some years — indeed, of years capable 
of learning the Scriptures. Timothy, while a hreplios, or child, 
says Paul, knew the holy Scriptures. For this is the word se- 
lected by him when speaking of the early attainments of Timo- 
thy, 2d Epis. Tim. iii. 15 : — " From a hrepJios, a child, thou hast 
known the holy Scriptures.^^ Such a brephos is, with us, a proper 
subject of baptism. The same is true of paidion, often trans- 
lated a ^^ little child ;^^ but John and the other Apostles call adult 
persons, as well as striplings and damsels, paidia. Jesus says, 
" Behold I and the children, paidia, whom God has given me.'^ 
This term, with him, indicates all the family of God. Indeed, 
a girl, said by Mark to be twelve years old, is called a paidion. 
See chapter v. 39, 43. Many such instances could be given, but 
surely these will suffice to show what fallacious guides these are • 
who would lead the people to imagine that these were speechless 
babes and senseless infants brought to Jesus to be blessed — 
when children from one to twelve years and more are so denomi- 
nated ! ! 

But there are in these passages themselves evident indications^ 
that they were not babes — perfect infants. " Suffer little chil- 
dren to come to me." He does not say carry them to me, but 
let them come. Again, in Mark and Luke, he says, " Suffer the 
little children to come to me." They were, then, capable of hear- 
ing, learning, and coming to him. 

Yet he does not say that " of them is the kingdom of heaven;"' 
but " of such /" — of those as humble, docile, and ingenuous as 
they — of such is the kingdom of God. Abraham, and Moses, 
and David, the Prophets and Apostles, are in character and 
spirit as teachable and subordinate as babes — and so are all the 
children of God. 

But more than enough has been said to show how entirely in- 
apposite to the case before us are these quotations from the 
Evangelists, which have respect to the imposition of the Saviour's 
hands and his benedictions on children, before Christian bap- 
tism was at all instituted, as all agree that Christian baptism- 
was instituted after the resurrection of Christ. We, therefore, 
proceed to another, yet a somewhat similar argument, deduced 
from a passage in Acts of Apostles, chap. ii. ver. 38, 39. *' Ee- 
pent and be baptized, every one of you" — " for the promise is to 
you and your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many 
as the Lord your God shall call." 



882 REVIEWS OP THE 

On this, Eev. Benjamin Kurtz, of Baltimore, says — 

" Observe here, that the children spoken of were * little 
cJiildren ;' according to Mark x. 16, they were so young that 
our Saviour ' took them up in his arms '/ and in Luke xviii. 15, 
they are expressly called * infants/ They must accordingly 
have been children, not only in temper, docility, &c., but also and 
emphatically in age and stature. Notice next, that our Lord 
positively affirms respecting them, that, ' of such is the Idngdom 
of heaven ;' that is, of such little children is the kingdom of 
heaven, — to them it belongs, or theirs this kingdom is. ' It is 
well known,^ says Professor Smucker, * to those acquainted with 
the phraseology of the New Testament, that the expressions 
" kingdom of God^' and " kingdom of heaven^^ are familiarly used 
to designate the church of God under the New Testament econo- 
my. Thus, John the Baptist preached, saying. Repent ye, for 
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It will not be supposed that 
heaven was literally descending to the earth and had almost 
arrived among us ; but the Saviour evidently meant, that the 
time for remodelling his church into its New Testament form 
was at hand.' Robert Hall, a distinguished and learned Baptist 
minister, explains this phrase in the same manner. His words 
are, ^ The kingdom of God, a phrase which is constantly employed 
in Scripture to denote that state of things which is placed under 
the avowed administration of the Messiah J If, then, the ex- 
pression, * kingdom of heaven,' signifies the visible church of 
God, as distinguished both from the heathen world and the old 
economy, and the church, as Christ declares, is composed in part 
of ^little children,' or embraces them as members, then, of 
course, they are entitled to baptism as the sign of their member- 
ship. 

" It is worthy of notice that the Apostle here uses the definite 
article the^ — not a, but * the promise,' that is, the promise of 
God to Abraham, * to be a God unto thee and unto thy seed after 
thee,^ is equally * unto you and to your children^ Now, in order 
to decide what Peter meant by the expression, * your children,' 
it is only necessary to ascertain the import of the words * thy 
seed' in the promise referred to. It is universally admitted, and 
has never been denied, that the latter comprises small children, 
* eight days old,' and hence it follows, with all tjie clearness and 
certainty of a mathematical demonstration, that the former em- 
braces the same description of individuals. Every one knows 
that the word seed means children ; and that children means 
seed ; and that they are precisely the same. The promise, then, 
in which God engages to be our God and to constitute us his 
people, extends equally to our children ; and, of course, gives 
them, as well as us, a right to the privileges of his people. And 
if they have a right to those privileges, what further argument 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 383 

need we to show that they are entitled to the outward token and 
seal of those privileges ? 

" It will avail nothing here to inform us, that tekna, children, 
means posterity ; — suppose it does, — sperma, seed, also means 
posterity ; but both include our earliest as well as our latest pos- 
terity, our youngest children as well as our most distant suc- 
cessors. Admitting that the word children does not always sig- 
nify infants, the question is, whether it can mean any thing else 
but infants in this passage ? Peter speaks to all who are capa- 
ble of understanding him. These he calls you. Now, whom 
can he possibly mean by the children of these hearers but the 
infant offspring which they either had or might have ? And if 
the promise to the adults be a reason for submitting to be bap- 
tized, it must also be a reason for baptizing the children ; since 
the promise is said to be equally to both; and this is made the 
foundation of their baptism.'' 

By what law or laws of interpretation Dr. Kurtz could make 
" the promise^' here named " the covenant of circumcision,'^ or 
the promise to be a God to Abraham and his seed after him, and 
to make it to children of eight days, I confess my entire ina- 
bility to perceive. To my mind, no assumption in any system, 
Papal or Protestant, is more destitute of any form of even spe- 
cious proof. 

This is the more arbitrary and illogical, inasmuch as " the 
promise'' is expressly said by Peter to be " the promise of the 
Holy Spirit," which is extended to all that are near and " afar 
off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call." It is Joel 
that Peter quotes, and not Moses, as Dr. Kurtz imagines. The 
gift of the Holy Spirit is the immediate antecedent to " the pro- 
mise" — as any one may see from the slightest attention to the 
passage. Again, both the children named in the text and those 
afar off are restricted by Joel to "as many of both as the Lord 
our God shall call.'^ 

It appears unnecessary to show how perfectly imaginative 
these expositors are in their comments. The term " children^ ^ 
here used applies -no more to infants than to the present genera- 
tion of the Jews ; for these are all the children of Abraham, 
though from eight days to eighty years old I 

I need scarcely again, except for formality, allude to the house- 
hold or family baptisms reported in Acts of Apostles. These 
have already been, we think, fully disposed of. We name them 
here in making a full exhibit of all that is alleged from the New 
Testament on this subject. Much reliance has been placed upon 



I 



384 REVIEWS OP THE 

them by the defenders of infant church membership, although 
the circumstances and details of their families forbid the pre- 
sumption that there was an infant in one of them ; and if there 
were even a plausible presumption, we have shown that to found 
a positive institution upon such a presumption would be alike 
without reason and authority from God's own Book. 

I have sometimes alluded to the fact that, were half the fami- 
lies in a given district baptized, there would not be an infant in 
one of them. This would have always been the case around my 
residence and in most of the neighborhoods of my acquaintance. 
It is, therefore, the most precarious basis on which any one 
could found an argument for infant baptism. 

The only remaining passage in the New Testament on which 
the advocates of this rite rely, is 1st Corinthians vii. 14 : "Else 
were your children unclean, but now they are holy ;'' a passage 
which, in our review of Dr. Miller of Princeton, we have shown 
to be against, rather than in favour of infant baptism. The 
gophism, we have unanswerably shown, in that case, is the Pe- 
dobaptist assumption that the children here named were the 
.children of those married to an unbelieving party ; whereas the 
letter of the passage is not their children, but " else were your 
.children unclean,'' Corinthians, " but now they are holy !" 
.Consequently they were unbaptized, else the Apostle's argu- 
ment is a palpable sophism : for to prove that an unbelieving 
and unbaptized wife was sanctified to the other party by the fact 
that a baptized child was holy or sanctified, would be as glaring 
ja sophism as the annals of criticism record. There is not, then, 
in all the passages adduced from the New Testament, the shadow 
of a reason or argument for infant baptism. 

But, before dismissing this subject from our pages for the 
present, there are two arguments against the position of our 
Pedobaptist friends, to which I specially invite their attention. 
The first of these respects their method of constructing an ar- 
gument for a positive institution ; and the otjier is an apostolic 
inhibition of their whole system of reasoning from the Old Tes- 
tament or Covenant in favour of infant church membership. A 
word or two on these may yet be apposite on the present occa- 
sion. 

First, then, as to the method of constructing an argument for 
a positive rite. Be it, then, emphatically stated, that their me- 
thod is not to produce either a precept or a precedent for infant 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 385 

. baptism ; but to infer it from sundry passages of Scripture ; 
never presuming to find, in any one passage, premises for the 
whole rite, but for a part of it. Then, by putting these parts 
together, supposed to be logically inferred from sundry sayings, 
they construct positive authority for a positive right. This is, 
most certainly, as unprecedented among men as it is inconclu- 
sive in point of logical propriety. Who ever heard, in any 
other case, of inferring a part of an ordinance from one sen- 
tence in one passage, and from another sentence in another pas- 
sage, referring to something else ; and then, by converting these 
two inferences into one, make it a positive and explicit autho- 
rity for a Christian institution ? Were lawyers and public de- 
baters to act in this way, they would expose themselves to the 
derision rather than to the admiration of their opponents. One 
scripture saith, "Judas went and hanged himself;'' another 
saith, "Go and do likewise.'' Put these together, and what an 
inference ! 

These special pleaders for infant baptism, in one passage, find 
the Messiah "blessing little children ;" in another, they find him 
commanding his Apostles to "convert the nations," and observ- 
ing little children in nations, and the Saviour blessing them, 
they found an ordinance called infant baptism ! They even go 
beyond one testament : for, finding Abraham circumcising his 
boys in one dispensation, and Peter, in Jerusalem, commanding 
thousands of men and women to be baptized, they infer that 
Christ intended infant baptism. The law of circumcision they 
find in one testament, and the law of baptism in another ; and, 
because the cutting off of flesh is somewhat adumbrative of 
separation, and because water in baptism takes away the filth 
of the flesh, putting these together, they infer the latter came 
in room of the former, and immediately set about instituting a 
new divine ordinance for putting away the filth of the flesh ! 

Can any one name a passage that either commands infant 
baptism or gives a precedent for it ? Can any one give an in- 
stance of a divine ordinance founded on two passages of Scrip- 
ture, and resting upon the relevancy of two inferences ? Can 
any one adduce two passages, spoken or written a thousand 
years apart, as being on any occasion made the foundation of a 
divine institution ? We fearlessly challenge Christendom for 
such a case. Until that is produced, we must regard infant 
J^aptism as we do "extreme unction," "clerical celibacy," 

33 



386 REVIEWS OF THE 

"prayers for the dead," or any other papal fancy sustained by 
cardinals, popes, and oecumenical councils. 

When I see learned bishops and hoary doctors carrying one 
limb of an institution from Ur of Chaldea; another, from a 
mountain in Galilee ; and a third, from a Philippian jailer ; and 
hear them, with a Westminster Assembly, call it "a New Testa- 
ment ordinance, ordained hy Jesus Christ,^' I am led to pray for 
another Luther to take the veil ojff the face of such blear-eyed 
Rabbles — to make a new scourge of very small cords, and drive 
them out of the temple ! For it has never happened, from the 
days of Adam till now, that God gave a positive institution to 
man, whose scattered members were spread over a field of reve- 
lation fifteen hundred years from end to end, and then to be 
gathered, ploughed, and grooved by modern theologians, who 
never had the use of tools, or were taught by God on Sinai's 
summit, to rear a new tabernacle for pilgrims to worship at. I 
have neither time nor space to push this matter farther. Since 
it has occurred to me, I only wonder why it is that these new 
authors of divine institutions were not long since called to give 
some authority for this their new art and mystery of manufac- 
turing them. 

But, when all argument fails, it is gravely said, "Infants were 
once members of the Jewish church, which was a church of 
God, and that by virtue of a Divine covenant. Now the ques- 
tion is. When were tliey cast outJ^ 

Infants were never cast out of the Jewish church, as some 
call it ; because it was a commonwealth, and the only excom- 
munication from it was death. It was a church of this world, 
a great community, called out of Egypt ; and, under Moses in 
the wilderness, God made a covenant with them, after they had 
all — men, women, and children — been "baptized into Moses in 
the cloud and in the sea ;" yet with many of them God was not 
well pleased, for "there fell in one day three thousand souls.'' 
There was no regeneration preached by Moses in order to an 
adoption which was national and political as well as religious. 
They were all, in virtue of natural birth, without regeneration 
or a second birth, entitled to the rank and relation of members 
of the Jewish national church. Flesh, and not faith, was the 
only prerequisite. It was, therefore, a "worldly sanctuary,'' — • 
a kingdom of this world — a holy nation, or a people outwardly 
sanctified or set apart for a special purpose. They were as po- 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 887 

litical as the English nation. Their saints were kings, gene- 
rals, and military captains. Their ministers, priests, and high- 
priest were men in the flesh, and they served in the **oldness of 
the letter,^' and not in newness of spirit. They were, however, 
a typical people, and their institutions, national existence, pri- 
vileges, and honours were all shadows of good things to come. 
God has, however, provided some better things for us, that they, 
without us. Christians, ** should not be perfect/' He promised 
that he would one day, "make a new covenant with the house 
of Israel and the house of Judah, not like that at Sinai, made 
with their fathers.'' It is, then, very easy for us to answer the 
question, *'If infants were once members of the Jewish church, 
when were they cast out?" First, then, they were cast out 
when the whole nation were divorced or separated from their 
covenant relation to God. When the nation ceased to be God's 
only nation and people ; then were parents and children cast 
off or cast out. We shall, then, hear Paul discuss the question, 
in his masterly and divinely authorized way: — "Tell me, ye 
that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law ? For 
it is written, that Abraham had two sons ; the one by a bondr 
jnaid, the other by a free-woman. But he who was of the bond- 
woman was born after the flesh ; but he of the free- woman was 
by promise. Which things are an allegory : for these are the 
two covenants ; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth 
to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai, in 
Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in 
bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is 
free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written. Rejoice, 
thou barren that bearest not ; break forth and cry, thou that 
travailest not : for the desolate hath many more children than 
she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, 
are the children of promise. But, as then, he that was born 
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, 
even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture ? 
Cast out the bond-woman and her son : for the son of the bond- 
woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman. So 
then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of 
the free." Here, in the person, relations, and history of Sarah, 
Hagar, Isaac, and Israel, are described with peculiar, circum- 
stantial exactness the two covenants, the two churches, the pri- 



888 REVIEWS OP THE 

vileges, honours, and immunities of the subjects of these two 
divine institutions. 

Abraham, as a son of God and the father of all believers, is 
introduced as the founder of both churches. He had two wives — 
oneyree, and one a bond-woman. These two women, Paul says, 
represent two institutions or two covenants — constitutions of 
society — and are by him converted into an allegory. They are 
allegorized in the following manner: — The two women, both 
wives, one free, the other bond, have each a son to Abraham. 
One is supernaturally, the other naturally born. Sarah never 
would have been, by the course of nature, a mother. By grace, 
through faith, and not by nature, she brought forth Isaac, the 
son of promise. Hagar's son was born, like the Jews, accord- 
ing to the flesh. He was, by simple nature, without grace, a 
son of Abraham. But, according to immemorial usage, the son 
follows the mother, as respects freedom or bondage ; therefore, 
Isaac was free-born — Ishmael a bond servant. 

Next were introduced two Jerusalems — one resembling Sarah 
and her son; the other, Hagar and her son: the latter, earthly; 
the former, heavenly. Like Hagar and her son, the Jerusalem 
on earth was in bondage when Paul wrote to the Galatians. 
Like Sarah and her son, the Jerusalem above was then free. 
She, the Lord be praised, is the mother of all Christians, as the 
former was the mother of all Jews. 

Isaiah lends his aid to Paul, just at this point, when portray- 
ing in heavenly strains the great increase, the superior progeny 
of the barren Sarah, in contrast with that of the youthful 
fleshly Hagar: " Kejoice, thou barren woman, that bearest not; 
break forth and shout, thou that travailest not'^ in birth ; for 
thou, the deserted woman, forsaken for a time by Abraham for 
the sake of Hagar, now "hast many more children than she 
who had (your) husband.^' "We then, brethren,'^ says Paul, 
^* as Isaac was, are the children of promise.'^ We are children by 
believing the promise — they were children without faith — chil- 
dren of the flesh. Such was the Jewish church by virtue of the 
old Sinai church covenant, Paul being judge and expositor. 

It deserves to be emphatically noted here, as both illustrative 
and corroborative of one of the characteristics already noted, 
of a community that embraces, as members of the church, all 
born of woman. I allude to its persecuting character. We 
have Paul with us here; "for,'' says he, "as then," in the case 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

of IshmaePs insults to Isaac and Sarah, *'he that was born after 
the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so 
it is now,'' The Jewish church, as such, with her elders, scribes, 
and priests, persecuted even to death the Lord of glory, some 
of his Apostles and Evangelists, and ultimately drove the whole 
church out of the Jerusalem that then was, scattering its mem- 
bers throughout Judea and Samaria, even to foreign cities. 

What a correspondence and in how many points ! But, adds 
Paul, "What saith the Scripture?^' — the old Scripture, coeval 
with Moses, and detailing the affairs of the Abrahamic family — 
" What saith the Scripture ? Oast out the bond-woman and her 
son, for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son 
of the free-woman J' Where now is the Jewish covenant, church 
and people ! Is the Christian church but the Jewish church en- 
larged and improved? ! "What saith the Scripture ? Cast out 
the bond-woman" — one of the covenants — " and her son" — the 
people under it — from being, as sucJi, the Christian church ; " for 
the sons of the bond-woman" — the offspring of the old Jewish 
covenant, the fieshly seed — " shall not inherit" or be heir with 
the children of the new institution, or the " free-woman'^ — who 
is the mother of us all — Jews and Gentiles, not as such, but as 
horn of the Spirit, 

What could be more conclusive? Abraham the root of the 
Jewish nation, was great in faith and great in flesh. He was 
the fleshly father of many nations, and of one nation great, and 
mighty, and prolific. But he is also the father of all that be- 
lieve, circumcised or uncircumcised, because of his mighty faith. 
He was the root of the Jewish church by fiesh. He is the root 
of the Christian church by faith, Jesus, the Messiah, both in 
flesh and spirit, was his son, and was the author and founder of 
a new church, whose members ar€ not born after the flesh, but 
after the Spirit — not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of the power or will of God. 

The same Apostle to the Romans, 11th chapter, reasons on 
this matter farther, and, in some points, more fully and satisfac- 
torily. The nucleus or germ of the Christian church were Jews 
as respects flesh, but not as such, but, by faith in Jesus as the 
Christ, they became the germ of the Christian church. " Thou 
standest by faith.'' The other branches of the Abrahamic stock 
were broken off from any special relations to God. The nation, 
as such, was rejected. The believing members of it only were 

33* 



390 REVIEWS OF THE 

made participants of the root and fatness of God^s spiritual 
olive-tree. Gentiles, not as suchy but such of them as ''had ob- 
tained like precious faith/^ were grafted in among the believing 
Jews, and made participants with them of all spiritual privi- 
leges — of "the root and fatness,'^ the benefits and blessings 
spiritual of " the good olive-tree/' The Jews, then, not as such, 
were broken off, but because of unbelief, — and the Gentiles, not 
because of flesh, but of faith, were grafted in among them. So 
Paul reasons with the Romans, and, in another figure and with 
other illustrations than those presented to the Galatians, esta- 
blishes the same great fact — that the Jewish church is not the 
Christian church, either in covenant or citizenship, either in im- 
munities or honours. The members of the former were born of 
the flesh — the members of the latter, by faith. The privileges 
and honours of the one were worldly and temporal — of the other, 
spiritual and eternal. Let no one, then, count on parentage, 
natural birth, or worldly covenants guarantying lands and tene- 
ments, worldly riches, and honours, for introduction to the 
church of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the son of Abraham ; 
for *' without faith it is impossible to please God,'' and "unless 
a man be born of the Spirit and of water, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God," now established and administered by 
Jesus Christ. Let all Pedobaptists remember " what saith the 
Scripture" — "not the children of the flesh, but of the Spirit, are 
now counted for the seedJ^ " Cast out," then, " the bond-wo- 
man and her son ; for the son of the bond-woman shall not be 
heir with the son of the free-woman. So then, brethren, we 
(Christians) are not sons of the bond-woman, but of the free." 
We are not baptized because of our fleshly descent from mem- 
bers of any church, but because " born from above — boim of the 
Spirit.'^ "Stand fast, then, in the liberty wherewith the Mes- 
siah has made us free, and be not again entangled with the 
bondage and tyranny of a law of outward rites and ceremonies. 
For we are the true circumcision, which worship God in spirit, 
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." 

We have, then, not only attempted to show that infant bap- 
tism has no authority in the New Testament, direct or indirect, 
in the form of precept or of precedent — in the form of allusion 
or reference, expressed or implied ; but we have gone farther — 
we have attempted to show that it is impliedly contrary to some • 
of the clearest developments, statements, and reasonings of 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 891 

Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets ; and, still farther, we pre- 
sume to say, that it is, in all its assumptions and pretences, not 
only void of authority, but expressly in conflict vrith many tes- 
timonies of the holy Scriptures, and with the whole genius, 
spirit, and letter of Christianity, as revealed to us in that Holy 
Book by which we are all to be judged in the great and glorious 
day of the Lord. Of course it remains ; then let it remain with 
every reader to say whether, on a careful and impartial exami- 
nation of the whole premises before him, we have succeeded in 
all that we have attempted, and scripturally and logically formed 
our judgment, and expressed in justifiable terms our convictions, 
sustained by reasons and authorities on which we can safely 
rely. If so, then let him see to it that he consistently acts in 
conformity to his own'convictions, and as he would wish to 
have done when he appears before the Searcher of all hearts, who 
will render to him according to his opportunity and his works. 

There yet remains another argument, with which we shall 
close this branch of the subject. It springs from the remarks 
just now made. It is founded on our personal responsibility. 
Every man must answer for himself; and, in doing this, his 
talents, opportunities, and dispositions will be taken into the ac- 
count. If, then, the future and final judgment is to be accord- 
ing to every man's work^ personal liberty and personal respon- 
sibility are established on such premises as make it absolutely 
indispensable that every one think and examine for himself, and 
act from his own convictions. Need I ask, how, then, can any 
one act by proxy in the things of salvation ? or how can any 
one be finally justified or condemned for that which is not his 
own act ? 

A grave question then must be, Are parents or their children to 
answer for neglect in the case of baptism f It must be the duty 
of parents to have their children baptized ; or it is the duty of 
the children to be baptized on their own responsibility. It can- 
not be the duty of both. Pedobaptists contend it is the duty of 
parents, and not of their ofispring. But where is the precept or 
the example so obliging parents ? No one can show a word in 
the New Testament on the subject. It is, indeed, the duty of 
the subject of baptism himself to be baptized. If so, then he 
must be an intelligent, voluntary, or moral agent ; and such an 
infant is not : therefore, he cannot be a subject of baptism in 
his own right. 



392 REVIEWS OF THE 

But the doctrine of Christ constitutes the subject of baptism 
an intelligent, voluntary, and accountable agent, and, therefore, 
commands him to believe, repent, and be baptized on his own 
conviction of duty and interest. Personal liberty of choice is, 
on all hands, admitted to be essential to personal responsibility. 
Christ^s people are all free men ; therefore, no one, by parent, 
by sponsor, or by priest, can be carried or compelled into, the 
kingdom of Jesus Christ. If so, they may be physically carried 
to the Lord's table and to heaven, and neither illumination nor 
volition, neither the conscience nor the heart, have any thing to 
do with our entrance into the church or our participations of its 
spiritual blessings. He that assumes this ground is not to be 
reasoned with by any one that " trembles at the word of God.'' 



CHAPTER VII. 

REVIEW OF PROFESSOR STUART OF ANDOVER. 

We do not think that we would presume too much upon the 
candour and good sense of all impartial inquirers after the pro- 
per action and subject of Christian baptism, who may have read 
with impartial consideration our previous essays on these highly 
interesting topics, if we should say, that, in their judgment, 
these two important items of the Divine will have been amply 
and satisfactorily developed by an appeal to the proper sources 
of evidence and authority, on such questions. Still, as the minds 
of very many well-disposed persons have been greatly sophis- 
ticated by a show of authority and certain special pleadings, 
based on some comparatively obscure passages of Scripture, or 
allusions to ancient customs, not well understood, I judge it ex- 
pedient to select a few specimens of these, by way of appendix 
to the direct evidence already furnished on those topics. 

And, first, on the action of baptism, much has been inferred 
from one occurrence of the word haptizo, rendered by the word 
toasJiy Mark vii. 3, 4. 

Professor Stuart, of Andover, writes a very elaborate essay to 
sustain the opinion of Calvin — viz. ^* It is of no consequence at 
all whether the person baptized is totally immersed, or whether 
he is merely sprinkled by an affusion of water. This should be 
a matter of choice to the churches in different regions, although 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 398 

the word baptize signifies to immerse, and the rite of immersion 
was practised by the ancient church/^ P. 364. "To this opi- 
nion/^ says he, "I do most heartily subscribe.^' Of course, then, 
the strict and proper meaning of the word baptize is of no conse- 
quence whatever, as every one's choice is all-sufi&cient to please 
God ! The Lawgiver of the universe enacts a positive law, and 
gives to every man his choice of three modes of observing it. 
Whichever of the three best pleases A, B, or C, will perfectly 
please God ! ! This is certainly a very complaisant and gene- 
rous condescension to human predilections and caprices. But 
with him the word wash justifies this : for, as we may wash by 
sprinkling, pouring, dipping, it is wholly indifierent which of the 
three we use. Whichever pleases us, pleases God ! ! 

In looking over the use of baptizo in the New Testament, find- 
ing that in eighty times occurring, it is twice translated wash ; 
and baptismos, occurring four times, though never applied to 
the ordinance, is three times translated washing, he assumes that 
this rendering, because of its permitting three ways of using water, 
is the very meaning which we should always affix to the word 
when indicating the institution of Christ ! 1 Yet, strange to tell, 
by only looking at a good concordance, he might see that the 
word baptisma, appropriated to the ordinance by the Messiah 
and his Apostles, though occurring twenty-two times, is never 
translated by the term wash or washing. What a glorious ambi- 
guity is here created ! Out of the whole family of baptizo, 
though occurring one hundred and twenty times in the New Tes- 
tament, he finds once wash and washed, and thrice washing. 

Now, then, the only ground of debate at present is. Does the 
term wash, in these passages, or rather the verb wash, as found 
in the English Testament, Mark vii. 3, 4, indicate any thing 
short of immersion in that particular case? And that I may 
save the labour of much writing, I will freely quote from Pro- 
fessor Kipley's Examination of Professor Stuart's Essay. On 
pages 39-47, the professor says : — 

" The whole passage, as expressed in the common version, is 
the following : — * For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they 
wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders : 
and when they come from the market, except they wash, they 
eat not.' Here are mentioned two instances of washing, (so 
called ;) the first, a matter of constant occurrence ; the second, 
an observance performed after returning from the market. The 
inquiry is a very natural one, Did these washings differ from one 



894 REVIEWS OF THE 

another in any respect ? To this inquiry, an affirmative answer 
can scarcely be avoided. For, in the first place, one was a 
washing which commonly occurred before a meal, without re- 
gard to the employment that had preceded it ; so that even if a 
person had remained at home, still, before taking his meal, he 
would wash his hands. The other was a ceremony, performed 
after having been exposed to the various occasions of defilement 
which would be connected with his attendance at market. Such 
was the variety of persons and things with which he might have 
contact, that a more formal and thorough ablution would na- 
turally be performed. 

" In examining the whole passage, especially in the original, 
an attentive reader will perceive an advance in the thought. 
There is presented, at first, the general custom, and then a spe- 
cific case, namely, after returning from the market. If, in com- 
mon, the hands were washed before eating, the reader is pre- 
pared to hear that, after returning from a mixed crowd of people, 
something different from, or additional to, this washing was 
performed. The English reader might overlook this, on account 
of the repetition of the word wash in the fourth verse ; although 
I cannot but think he would, if attentive, be sensible of some 
deficiency in the representation, unless he should conclude, from 
the repeated use of the same word, wash, that his expectation of 
a more formal and thorough ceremony after returning from 
market, was an incorrect one. But, to a careful reader of the 
Greek, no such sense of deficiency arises, and no such disap- 
pointment occurs. For, as further showing that there was a 
difference between the two instances of washing, I observe : — 

"In the second place, two different Greek words are em-^ 
ployed to express the washing in the two different cases. In 
the third verse, we read ean me nipsoontai; while, in the fourth, 
we read ean me baptisoontai. These two words well correspond 
to the circumstances of the two cases ; and, rendered according 
to the proper meaning, clearly exhibit the advance in the 
thought. To make this matter plain to a mere English reader, 
I observe, there is a difference between these two verses in the 
original, like what would be felt if they were thus translated : 
Tor the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their 
hands oft, eat not ; and when they come from the market, except 
they bathe^ they eat not.' 

"To proceed. Since, now, there is a plain difference between 
these two cases of washing, as suggested both by the occasions 
and by the different verbs employed in the original, what was 
the precise difference between them ? Was it that, on common 
occasions, they washed their hands only ; while, on the occa- 
sion of returning from market, they immersed, or bathed, their 
whole persons ? So thought Vatablus, a distinguished professor 
of Hebrew at Paris, for whoni the Jews of his acquaintancQ 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. §SS 

entertained a very high regard. 'They bathed/ says he, on 
Mark vii. 4, ^ their whole persons.^ So thought Grotius, who 
says, on Mark vii. 4, * They cleansed themselves more carefully 
from defilement contracted at the market, to wit, by not only 
washing their hands, but even by immersing their body. In 
conformity to this, may the passage in Mark be rendered, with- 
out the least violence to its language. In conformity with this, 
too, were the conveniences among the Jews : accommodations 
for frequent ablutions were everywhere ready. Nor, with their 
mode of dress, would the practice be so cumbersome as it would 
be among us.' 

" That some of the stricter sort, that many, enough to justify 
the Evangelist's general expression, did practise total ablution 
on the occasion mentioned, is altogether credible. Kuinoel, 
however, in his commentary, asserts that the existence of such 
a custom among the Pharisees is not sustained by sufficient ar- 
guments. In the absence of clear, satisfying proof, it is not be- 
coming to make any positive assertions. However striking the 
language of Mark may, by some, be considered, as recognising 
such a practice, (and the language is certainly coincident with 
such a practice, especially when we look at it by the investiga- 
tions respecting baptizo on the preceding pages,) yet I am not 
disposed to urge it. But, assuming the ground that the Evan- 
gelist did not intend to distinguish a total bathing from a par- 
tial washing, I again inquire, did he distinguish one sort of 
partial washing from another sort of partial washing, one of 
which sorts was performed by the dipping of the hands into 
water, and thus was properly expressed by the peculiar term 
(baptizo) which he has employed ? If so, this word is here used 
in its radical, proper meaning ; and, consequently, examined in 
its connection, is so far from requiring or justifying Professor 
Stuart's view of its meaning, that it is a decisive instance 
against his view. 

**I have already said that the word (baptisoontai) in this pas- 
sage may, without any violence, be considered as distinguishing 
a total immersion from a washing of the hands. I am by no 
means satisfied, however, that this is a necessary view of the 
passage. The verb is in the middle voice ; and, as there is 
no object expressed after it, it would be lawful, in order to ex- 
press the Greek, to employ, as Professor Stuart has, the word 
themselves f as being contained in the verb itself; so that the trans- 
lation would be, * except they immerse or bathe themselves,' Still, 
as the verb (nipsoontai) in the former part of the passage has, 
in the middle voice, an object [cheiras, hands) after it, it is cer- 
tainly justifiable, though not necessary, to maintain that the 
verb in the latter part of the passage (baptisoontai) has the same 
word understood after it for its object. The passage would then 
read, * The Pharisees .... except they wash their hands oft, eat 



396 REVIEWS OF THE 

not, .... and when they come from the market, except they im- 
merse or bathe their hands, they eat not.' The ambiguity in the 
Greek is much the same as there is in the following English 

sentence : * The Pharisees except they wash their hands oft, 

eat not .... and when they come from the market, except they 
"bathe, they eat not.' The word hands may be considered as 
understood after the word bathe, or the word themselves may be 
understood. The illustration is a complete one, because we are 
not in the habit of distinguishing between different modes of 
washing the hands. 

"I proceed now to the inquiry, whether there were two sorts 
of washing of the hands, and what the distinction between 
them? The following quotations exhibit all that I have to offer; 
and I present them the more readily, as they are selected from 
Pedobaptist writers : — 

** Jahn, in his Biblical Archaeology, section 320, makes the 
following statement : * The washing of hands before the meals 
(a custom which originated from the practice of conveying food 
to the mouth in the fingers) was eventually made a religious 
duty ; on the ground that, if any one, though unconscious of 
the circumstance at the time, had touched any thing, whatever 
it might be, which was unclean, and remained unwashed, when 
he ate, he thereby communicated the contamination to the food 
also.' The Pharisees judged the omission of this ablution to be 
a crime of equal magnitude with fornication, and worthy of 
death. 

** They taught that, if a person had not departed from the 
house, the hands, without the fingers being distended, should be 
wet with water poured over them, and then elevated so that the 
water might flow down to the elbows ; furthermore, the water 
was to be poured a second time over the arms, in order that (the 
hands being held down) it might flow over the fingers. This 
practice is alluded to in Mark vii. 3. On the contrary, those 
who had departed from the house, washed in a bath, or, at least, 
immersed their hands in water with the fingers distended. The 
ceremony in this case (Mark vii. 4) is denominated ean me bapii- 
soontai, (except they immerse, or bathe.) 

*'Dr. George Campbell, on Mark vii. 3, 4, says, 'For illustrat- 
ing this passage, let it be observed, first, that the two verbs, 
rendered wash in the English translation, are different in the 
original. The first is nipsoontai, properly translated ivash; the 
second is baptisooniai, which limits us to a particular mode of 
washing; for baptizo denotes to plunge, to dip. This is more 
especially the import when the words are, as here,, opposed to 
each other. Otherwise, niptein, like the general word to ivash in 
English, may be used for baptizein, to dip, because the genua 
comprehends the species ; but not conversely, baptizein for bap- 
tein, the species for the genus. By this interpretation, the 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 897 

words which, as rendered in the common version, are unmean- 
ing, appear both significant and emphatical ; and the contrast 
in the Greek is preserved in the translation/ Accordingly, Dr. 
Campbell translates the passage thus : * For the Pharisees .... eat 
not until they have washed their hands, by pouring a little 
water upon them ; and if they be come from the market, by dip- 
ping them/ 

"Rosenmuller, in his notes on this passage, speaks of two 
modes of washing the hands ; namely, * immersion of the hands 
in water, and when one hand is washed by the other.' 

"Kuinoel, also, speaking of the opinion entertained by some, 
that a total ablution was performed in case of returning from 
the market, says, *But an immersion of tJie hands, &aly per- 
formed, would have abundantly sufficed for this end ;' that is, 
for purification from contact with the multitude. 

"Spencer, on the Ritual Laws of the Hebrews, speaks thus: 

* Some of the Jews, ambitious for the credit of superior purity, 
frequently immersed their whole persons in water ; the greater 
part, however, following a milder discipline, frequently washed 
only their hands, when they were about to take food. That the 
greater part, and especially the Pharisees, attended to this rite 
privately, at home, and considered it a very important part of 
religion, is sufficiently evident from Mark vii. 3, 4. Hence it 
was that stone vessels for water [water-pots, John ii. 6] were 
provided for every house of the Hebrews ; so that all, when 
about to take food, might perform the frequent washings, accord- 
ing to the discipline of the Pharisees. These vessels were very 
suitable for performing these daily purifications of the Jews ; 
for it was customary among the Jews, sometimes to wash the 
hands by water poured upon them ; at other times, to immerse 
the hands in water up to the wrist/ 

*'From Lightfoot, I gather the following: On Mark vii. 4, he 
says, * The Jews used "the washing of hands,'' and "the plung- 
ing of the hands.'' And the word nipsoontai, "wash,'' in our 
Evangelist seems to answer to the former, — and baptisooniai, 
"baptize," to the latter.' .... * Those that remain at home, eat not 
.... "unless they wash the fist." But those that come from the 
market eat not, .... "unless they plunge their fist into the water," 
being ignorant and uncertain what uncleanness they came near 
unto in the market.' * The phrase, therefore,' Lightfoot adds 

* seems to be meant of the immersion or plunging of the hands 
only.' But I remark, though it were only the hands that were 
plunged, yet the meaning of baptizo is sufficiently obvious." 

"The preceding copious examination helps us, of course, 
rightly to understand the quotation from Luke xi. 48, which is 
next brought forward to sustain the meaning to wash^ ascribed 
to hap>tizo: *But the Pharisee, seeing him, wondered that he 
had not first washed himself [hapiisthe) before dinner.' Com- 

34 



898 REVIEWS OP THE 

mon version, ' And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that 
he had not first washed before dinner ;' that he had not first 
immersed^ that is, himself, or his hands. By the preceding part 
of the chapter, it appears that our Lord and his host had been 
exposed to a great mixture of company; and, therefore, needed, 
in the judgment of the Pharisee, the more formal and thorough 
sort of washing. On this passage, too, Lightfoot observes, 
* There is a washing of the hands, and there is a dipping of 
the hands.' This clause we are upon, refers to this latter. 
The Pharisee wonders that Christ had not washed his hands ; 
nay, that he had not dipped them all over in the water, when 
he was newly come from the people that were gathered thick 
together.'' 

The laborious and numerous attempts from this passage to 
make out a case where, in the judgment of the authors of the 
common version, the verb baptize means to wash, as a primary 
meaning, demands a particular and full exposure of this bewil- 
derment of some men of learning in their zeal for afi'usion. I 
have, therefore, gone into these details. I wonder no little, in- 
deed, to see a man of Professor Stuart's learning and candour 
do so little honour to his own learning and critical acumen, as 
in this case is most apparent. His own party — I mean the more 
profound scholars of his own party — are themselves here arrayed 
against him. Here stand Drs. Campbell, Eosenmuller, Kuinoel, 
Spencer, and Lightfoot, in evidence against his reasonings and 
conclusions. 

There are, in the common version, some two or three other 
occurrences of this erroneous translation, which are disposed of 
by these investigations. To quote still farther from Professor 
Ripley : 

"To sustain the meaning to wash, three other passages are 
produced by Professor Stuart, which contain the substantive de- 
rived from the verb baptizo : — 

*' Mark vii. 4 : The washings [baptismous) of cups and pots, 
and brazen vessels, and couches, [klinoon.) 

** Mark vii. 8 ; The washings [baptismous) .of pots and cups. 

" Heb. ix. 10 : Only in meats and drinks, and divers washings^ 
{baptismous.) 

" That the word rendered washings in these passages ought, 
so far as philology is concerned, to be rendered immersions^ 
would be a plain inference from the preceding investigations. 
And even though a difficulty should seem to arise from the na- 
ture of some of the things mentioned by Mark, we ought, be- 
fore we decide that the word must have another meaning, to in- 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 899 

quire whether the supposed difficulties really existed in practice 
among the Jews. It is by no means satisfactory to refer to cus- 
toms among ourselves, as suggesting difficulties in respect to 
what the Jews are said to have done ; and especially what they 
are said to have done by the influence of a misguided religious 
scrupulosity ; for it was from religious, though mistaken consi- 
derations, that they practised these observances. Nor were such 
observances entirely without foundation in the statutes of Moses. 
In Lev. xi. 32, it is directed that any vessel upon which the 
dead body of an unclean animal had fallen, * whatsoever vessel 
it be, wherein any work is done, it must be put into water,' in 
order to be cleansed. The only exception was in respect to 
earthen vessels, which, being thus polluted, were to be broken 
in pieces, (ver. 33.) Now, how credible it is, and how accord- 
ant with the language of Mark, that the superstitious spirit of 
the Jews, in subsequent times, extended this requisition to other 
cases besides that of pollution by the touch of the dead ; so that 
even on ordinary occasions, when they thought religion required 
the articles to be cleansed, the cleansing must be performed by 
immersing them in water. 

" And who can wonder, if this same spirit led them carefully to 
cleanse by immersion even the couches on which they reclined 
at meals ? for it is these, probably, which are meant by "the word 
translated tables in our version. It would certainly accord well 
with their superstitious disposition. And so far as the writings 
of distinguished men among the Jews enable us to form a judg- 
ment, those writings contribute altogether to the belief that 
there was usually performed an immersion of these articles, 
when they needed special purifying. The Jewish rules which 
Dr. Gill quotes in his commentary on Mark vii. 4, are precise 
in requiring such articles to be cleansed by being covered in 
water ; and the regulations are exceedingly strict in regard to 
this washing, so that should there be any thing adhering to these 
articles, such as pitch, which might prevent the water from 
touching the wood in a particular spot, the washing would not 
be duly performed. The same Jewish authority requires even 
beds to be cleansed by immersion, when they had become defiled. 

"And what should hinder us from employing the word im- 
mersions in Heb. x. 9 ? Immersions were practised by the Jews 
in accordance with the Mosaic ritual ; and why may we not con- 
sider the Apostle, when naming the immersions, as taking a 
part for the whole of the legal purifications, and consequently 
as not departing from the specific original meaning of the word 
he has employed V 

These matters of private or sectarian interpretation being dis- 
posed of, there remains scarcely the semblance of any other ex- 
cuse for the practice of sprinkling, as derived from any word or 



400 REVIEWS OP THE 

circumstances named in the whole New Testament. True, in- 
deed, there are words and circumstances seized by some adult 
babes or babe adults, and dwelt on with a zeal and perseverance 
worthy of a martyr ; but in this case, they only prove how strong 
in prejudice and how weak in reason some men of high preten- 
sions may be, when they have unfortunately identified their for- 
tune and their fame with the maintenance of a tenet for which 
there is neither reason nor faith. 

Such, for example, is the frequent appeal to the case of Paul's 
baptism, as reported by Luke, Acts xxii. 16: "Arise and be 
baptized ;'' and again, chap. ix. 18 : *' He arose and was bap- 
tized.^' Now, say they, as Paul was baptized standing, he must 
have been sprinkled, and not immersed. But does it say he was 
baptized standing? — ! No, indeed ; but " Arise, and be bap- 
tized.'^ What is this but the usual style — "Arise, let us go 
hence 1" Could he not have been sprinkled sitting, or on his 
knees, as well as standing up ! In the same chapter, 10th 
verse, the Lord said to Saul, " Arise, and go into Damascus.^' 
Why not infer that rising and going into Damascus are one and 
the same thing, or inseparably connected, as that rising up and 
being baptized are one and the same act, because connected 
in the same message or precept. When candidates present them- 
selves for baptism, we are all wont to say, " Arise, let us go to 
the water,'' &c. This, then, if there be any argument in it, is 
doubtless in favour of immersion. For Ananias would rather 
have called for water to be brought, than to have commanded 
Paul to rise up and be baptized, if he intended sprinkling or 
pouring. In truth, this is an idiomatic expression, common to 
the East and the West. On a thousand occasions, we all say, 
" Rise, and let us go to work" — "Arise, and act like men" — not 
meaning that we are about to engage in something that must be 
done in a standing position ; but that we must change our posi- 
tion in reference to some object, whether mental or corporeal. 

Next to the passage in Mark, there is one in Ezekiel, that has 
been quoted a thousand times by a few writers and speakers on 
the subject of " sprinJding water^' on infants and adults. It is 
chapter xxxvi. and verse 25 : " Then will I sprinMe clean water 
upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and 
from all your idols I will cleanse you." This promise alludes 
to the separation of the Jews, through faith in Christ, from pagan 
idols and from pagan nations, to be fulfilled in their conversion. 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 401 

So the context indicates. The words preceding are : " For I will 
take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all coun- 
tries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle 
clean water upon you,^^ &c. &c. One would think, from the fre- 
quency and emphasis with which these words are quoted by a 
certain class of ultra sprinklers, that Ezekiel was foretelling and 
developing the ordinance of Christian baptism as practised by 
some modern communities. But a more irrational play upon a 
word from grave men, or from those who ought to be grave men, 
is not, in my opinion, to be found in modern literature. 

Let no one be startled by the boldness I assume when I chal- 
lenge the whole world of sprinklers to show that water alone 
was, by divine authority, ever sprinkled upon person, place, or 
thing, in any religious, moral, political, or physical sense whatever, 
I deny that ever water alone was sprinkled on any person or 
thing, by divine authority, for any sort of purification, legal or 
evangelical, under any dispensation of rjeligion, Patriarchal, 
Jewish, or Christian. It is an assumption superlatively gra- 
tuitous and unprecedented. 

Blood, and oil, and water mixed with the ashes of a blood-red 
heifer, have been sprinkled for legal and ceremonial purposes. 
Blood alone, oil alone ; but never water alone, was divinely or- 
dained for such purposes. The water of cleansing, or the water 
of purification, sometimes called ^^the water of separation,^ ^ was, 
indeed, in certain cases of legal uncleanness, divinely appointed. 
Hence a prescription for the manufacture of it is delivered by 
Moses, engrossing the 19th chapter of the book of Numbers. 
Yet even this " clean water,'' or " water of cleansing,'' to which 
Ezekiel alludes, when sprinkled upon a person pronounced le- 
gally unclean, did not, without baptism, or a " bathing himself 
in water," efiect any legal purification. So ignorant are they 
of the Law and the Prophets, who substitute the Roman Catholic 
notion of " holy water" and a hair sprinkler, for either Jewish 
or Christian cleansing of person, place, or thing. Bathing the 
whole person after this sprinkling of water and ashes, was in 
every case essential to any legal benefit. 

This abuse of reason, of authority, and of Holy Scriptures, 
needs only to be clearly propounded to any one that reveres 
Bible authority, to appear, as it is in truth, a superstitious and 
unwarranted custom. But to quote a Jewish Prophet, of the 
times of the captivity, addressing his countrymen on the subject 

34* 



402 REVIEWS OP THE 

of their restoration to their own land, as though he had been 
teaching Christian ordinances with respect to admission into the 
church, has no parallel in sophistry on this side the assumptions 
of Roman Catholic manufacturers of " holy water,'' to be dashed 
on every one that comes within the sweep of a hyssop or hair 
sprinkler in the hand of a priest, neither of the tribe nor sense 
of a son of Levi. 

I trust the candid reader will excuse me for adverting to cus- 
toms so unfounded in Christianity, and so revolting to an edu- 
cated and intelligent community. I find my own justification, 
and I hope my readers will find my pardon, in the fact that some 
ministers of our own day have been dubbed Doctors of Divinity 
for no other or better reason, that I can see, than their quoting, 
with an air of glorious triumph on their brow, Ezekiel xxvi. 25, 
in proof of their own dear custom of baptizing the tip of their 
fingers in a bason of water, that they may sprinkle a few drops 
of it on the brow of a babe, in the name of the Lord, to sanctify 
and cleanse it for some end or purpose which no one can define, 
much less defend. 

I must conclude this essay on punctilios, consecrated by 
great names, with an extract from Dr. Wall, the most learned 
and candid of Pedobaptist Episcopalian ministers. The advo- 
cates of sprinkling will hear their brother Pedobaptist with 
more pleasure than myself. I will, therefore, courteously dis- 
miss the topic with a few words from Dr. Wall. He says : — 

** That our climate is no colder than it was for those thirteen 
or fourteen hundred years from the beginning of Christianity 
here, to Queen Elizabeth's time : and not near so cold as Mus- 
covy and some other countries, where they do still dip their 
children in baptism, and find no inconvenience in it. 

" That the apparent reason that altered the custom, was not 
the coldness of the climate, but the imitation of Calvin, and the 
church of Geneva, and some others thereabouts. 

** That our reformers and compilers of the liturgy (even of the 
last edition of it) were of another mind. As appears both by 
the express order of the rubric itself, and by the prayer used 
just before baptism, * Sanctify this water,' &c., * and grant that 
this child to be baptized therein,' &c.; (if they had meant that 
pouring should have always, or most ordinarily, have been used, 
they would have said thereivWi ; ) and by the definition given in 
the Catechism of the outward visible sign in baptism : * Water, 
wlierein the person is baptized.' I know that in one edition it 
was said, ' is dipped or sprinkled with it.' I know not the his- 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 403 

tory of that edition ; but as it is a late one, so it was not thought 
fit to be continued. The old edition had the prayer beforesaid 
in these words, * baptized in this water/ 

" That if it be the coldness of the air that is feared, a child, 
brought in loose"' blankets, that may be presently put off and 
on, need be no longer naked, or very little longer, than at its 
ordinary dressing and undressing — not a quarter or sixth part 
of a minute. 

"If the coldness of the water, there is no reason, from the na- 
ture of the thing — no order or command of God or man, that it 
should be used cold ; but as the waters in which our Saviour and 
the primitive Christians, in those hot countries which the Scrip- 
ture mentions, were baptized, were naturally warm by reason 
of the climate, so if ours be made warm, they will be the liker 
to them. As the inward and main part of baptism is God^s 
washing and sanctifying the soul, so the outward symbol is the 
washing of the body, which is as naturally done by warm water 
as cold. It may, I suppose, be used in such a degree of warmth 
as the parents desire. 

"As to those of the clergy who are satisfied themselves, and 
do in their own minds and opinions approve of the directions of 
the liturgy, and would willingly bring their people to the use 
of it, it is too apparent what difficulties lie in the way. So that 
this quarreller has no ground in his assuming way to demand, 
* Why do they continue,^ &c. 

" The difficulty of breaking any custom which has got pos 
session among the body of the people (though that custom be 
but two or three generations) is known and obvious. And there 
being a necessity of leaving it to the parents' judgment whether 
their child may well endure dipping or not, they are very apt to 
think or say not; and there is no help for it. For none, I think, 
will pretend that the minister should determine that, and dip 
the child whether they will or not. He can but give his opi- 
nion — the judgment must be theirs ; and they are for doing as 
has been of late usual. 

"But there are, beside this general, two particular obstacles, 
which it may be fit to mention : — 

" 1st. One is from that part of the people in any parish who 
are preshyterianly inclined. As the Puritan party brought in 
this alteration, so they are very tenacious of it ; and, as in other 
church matters, so in this particularly, they seem to have a set- 
tled antipathy against the retrieving of the ancient customs. 
Calvin was, I think, (as I said in my book,) the first in the 
world that drew up a form of liturgy that prescribed pouring 
water on the infant, absolutely, without saying any thing of dip- 
ping. It was (as Mr. Walker has shown) his admirers in Eng- 
land, who, in Queen Elizabeth's time, brought pouring into 
ordinary use, which before was used only to weak children. 



404 REVIEWS OF THE 

But the succeeding Presbyterians in England, about the year 
1644, (when their reign began,) went farther yet from the an- 
cient way, and, instead of powing^ brought into use in many 
places sprinkling, declaring at the same time against all use of 
fonts, baptisteries, godfathers, or any thing that looked like the 
ancient way of baptizing. And as they brought the use of the 
other sacrament to a great and shameful infrequency, (which it 
is found difficult to this day to reform,) so they brought this of 
baptism into a great disregard. Now, I say, a minister in a 
parish, where there are any considerable number inclined to 
this way, will find in them a great aversion to this order of the 
rubric. They are hardly prevailed on to leave off that scan- 
dalous custom of having their children, though never so well, 
baptized out of a basin or porringer in a bedchamber, hardly 
persuaded to bring them to church ; much farther from having 
them dipped, though never so able to endure it. 

"2d. Another struggle will be with the midwives and nurses, 
&c. These will use all the interest they have with the mothers, 
(which is very great,) to dissuade them from agreeing to the 
dipping of the child. I know no particular reason, unless it be 
this : — A thing which they value themselves and their skill 
much upon, is, the neat dressing of the child on the christening 
day ; the setting all the trimming, the pins, and the laces, in 
their right order. And if the child be brought in loose clothes, 
which may presently be taken off for the baptism, and put on 
again ; this pride is lost. And this makes the reason. So little 
is the solemnity of the sacrament regarded by many, who mind 
nothing but the dress and the eating and drinking. But the 
minister must endeavour to prevail with some of his people who 
have the most regard for religion, and possibly their example 
may bring in the rest.'' 

We will also hear Dr. "Wall reprove his brethren for their 
quibbles about sprinkling : — 

" This [immersion] is so plain and clear by an infinite num- 
ber of passages, that, as one cannot but pitj/ the weak endea- 
vours of such Pedobaptists as would maintain the negative of it, 
so we ought to disown and show a dislike of the profane scoffs 
which some people give to the English Antipedobaptists [Bap- 
tists] merely for the use of dipping ; when it was, in all proba- 
bility, the way by which our blessed Saviour, and, for certain, 
was the most usual and ordinary way by which the ancient 
Christians did receive their baptism. 'Tis a great want of pru- 
dence, as well as of honesty, to refuse to grant to an adversary 
what is certainly true, and may be proved so. It creates a 
jealousy of all the rest that one says. The custom of the Chris- 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 405 

tians in the near suceeeding times [to the Apostles] being more 
largely and particularly delivered in books, is known to have 
been generally or ordinarily a total immersion/' 

He might have said always, rather than ^^ ordinarily J' 



CHAPTER Vni. 

THE EVIL OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

Having been able to find no good in infant baptism, nor in 
infant sprinkling, (for I must always consider them as distinct 
things,) I now proceed to inquire. Is there any evil in it ? In 
answering this question, I desire to be guided by three things 
only — Scripture, reason, and fact: neither by passion nor by 
prejudice ; nor, I trust, will the fear of the frown of any mortal 
ever deter me from declaring the truth on this, or any other 
topic on which I am fairly called to express my sentiments. I 
answer the question now proposed, with the utmost coolness 
and deliberation ; and feel no hesitation in declaring that infant 
sprinkling is a manifold evil. This I shall instance in a few 
respects :-^ 

1st. It is ^^wiUrWorsMpJ^ By the term will-worsTiip, I under- 
Btand worship founded upon the loill of man, and not on the wiU 
of God. "In vain do they worship me," saith Christ, "teach- 
ing for doctrines the commandments of men." The preceding 
pages show that the rite of infant sprinkling is as much a tra- 
dition of men as the scrutiny, the exsiifflation by which devils 
are expelled, the insufflation by which the Spirit of God is com- 
municated, the consecration of the wafer, the clirismal unction, 
the liglited taper, and the milk and honey, which are but seven 
of the twenty-two appendages to infant sprinkling, made by the 
church of Rome. Now, as all will-worship is a disparagement 
of the worship appointed of God, it is, consequently, a reflection 
upon his wisdom, and obnoxious to his displeasure. It is as 
contrary to his revealed will as the presenting of ** strange fire" 
upon his altar was in the days of Nadab and Abihu. And, 
indeed, every religious practice which is not founded upon an 
explicit revelation of the will of Heaven, is will-worship. The 



406 REVIEWS or the 

language of it is this, "Thou shouldst have appointed this, and 
we are supplying a defect in thy wisdom or goodness." Such 
is the spirit of every innovation in divine worship. 

2d. It has carnalized and secularized the church more than 
any other innovation since the first defection from Christianity. 
The actual tendency of infant sprinkling is to open the gates 
of the church as wide as the gates of the world, and to receive 
into its bosom all that is born of woman. That this may ap- 
pear as obvious as the light of the sun, the reader has only to 
reflect that if the Pedobaptist system prevailed so that all the 
fathers and mothers in any country, or in all countries, were 
determined to have their infant ofi'spring *' initiated into the 
churcJi'^ as soon as born, by the rite of sprinkling, then, in that 
country, or in all countries so acting, the discrimination be- 
tween the world and the *church would be lost ; its gates would 
"be as capacious as those of the world, and, without the neces- 
sity of a spiritual renovation, every member of the human 
family, in that region or country, would have a place in the 
church. About one hundred years ago, the whole kingdom of 
Scotland, with the exception of, say, two or three thousand in- 
dividuals, was one great Pedobaptist society. In those days, 
the church engrossed all that were born, and initiated them 
into it. Of course, all the enormities committed in the realm 
were committed by members of the church ; so that none of the 
apostolic admonitions, in which the difibrence between the 
church and the world is pointed out, would apply to them. 

In the year 1300, and for several centuries before, all the citi- 
zens of Germany, France, Spain, England, and, indeed, the 
whole Western Koman Empire, with the exception of a few 
Baptists, were initiated into what was then called the Church, 
as soon as the parents could have the rite performed. In those 
days, and whilst those principles prevailed, the church was 
secularized, the church and state completely amalgamated, and 
all the follies and vices of childhood, manhood, and old age 
were engrafted upon the stalk of Christianity. In those days, 
Pedobaptist principles triumphed, and there never was a period 
in which the church was so completely and universally carnal- 
ized and secularized. Let it not be said that this was owing 
more to other traditions than to infant baptism or sprinkling ; 
for, when we grant that there were many other innovations and 
traditions besides this, we must insist that this contributed more 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 407 

than they all to introduce that awfully corrupt system, called 
the Man of Sin — to nurture, to mature, and to perfect it. It 
introduced all, good and bad, into the church ; and as bad men 
invented errors and propagated heresies in the church, we have 
only to ask how they got in, and then the true cause of the 
enormous mass of error of those days appears. It is a fact, 
evident from church history, that the prevalence of corruption 
in the church bore pace with the prevalence of infant baptism, 
and the triumphant days of the one were the triumphant days 
of the other. 

, The description we have of the church, in the Scriptures, 
leads us to consider all the members of it as a "peculiar peo- 
ple'' — as born from above — as being all taught of God. Hence 
we read, "A willing people, in the day of thy power, will come 
to thee.'^ "All thy children shall be.taught of God, and great 
shall be the peace of thy children.'' "Every one that hath 
heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.'' "To 
as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the 
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name ; which 
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
will of man, but of God." Power or privilege to become the 
sons of God was given to such only as were born of God. How 
unlike this to the practice of Pedobaptists, who endeavour to 
crowd all into the church which are born, not of God, but of 
the will of tliefiesh and the will of man ! 

Again, when we read the descriptions given of the churches 
of the saints in the Epistles, they will not apply to a church 
that admits all the infants, born of the members, to member- 
ship. The majority of any such church must be of a character 
essentially dissimilar to the following descriptions of the church 
of Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. vi. 11 : "Ye are washed, ye are sancti- 
fied, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our God." 2 Thess. ii. 13 : "Brethren beloved of the 
Lord, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, 
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth J' 
1 Peter ii. 5 ; "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual 
house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices accept- 
able to God by Jesus Christ." 9th verse : "But ye are a chosen 
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, 2i peculiar people; 
that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called 
you out of darkness into his marvellous light : which, in time 



408 REVIEWS OP THE 

past, were not a people, but are now the people of God ; which 
had not obtained mercy, but have now obtained mercy/' These, 
and a hundred other addresses to the Christian church, are 
totally inapplicable to any Pedobaptist church, composed of a 
great many members incapable of distinguishing their right 
hand from the left. When the question is proposed. What has 
rendered the Pedobaptist churches unworthy to be addressed in 
this way ? the answer is. Because they have received so many 
members, very many, that were merely children of the flesh ; 
nay, the nine-tenths of all Pedobaptist churches became mem- 
bers by natural birth ; and, as the children of the flesh, were 
constituted members. Infant sprinkling has, then, carnalized 
and secularized the church ; and, hence, all Pedobaptist sects 
have become national churches when they had it in their power ; 
for their views of the church are carnalized as well as the mem- 
bers : hence papacy is the established religion of Italy, Spain, 
France, &c. ; Episcopacy of England and Ireland ; and Presby- 
terianism of Scotland. In the United States, the principles of 
civil polity being better understood than in any other country 
in the world, not any form of religion has obtained the exclu- 
sive patronage of the state ; and may it continue so, till all sects 
shall be abolished, and all the children of God, united in faith, 
and hope, and love, shall kuow no bond of union but Christ — 
when party names, party love, and party zeal shall all be buried 
in one common grave, to rise no more for ever ! 

The second evil I have specified, being sufficiently stated and 
established, I proceed to mention a third evil resulting from, and 
inseparably connected with, infant sprinkling, viz. : — 

3d. Infant sprinkling imposes a religion upon the subjects of 
it before they are aware of it, and thus deprives them of exer- 
cising the liberty of conscience in choosing that which they 
have examined, and in refusing that which they disapprove. It 
is despotism of the worst kind, to impose upon the conscience. 
It is the most despotic act in the life of the greatest despot, to 
impose a religion upon his new-born infant before it is aware ; 
and, as soon as it can reason, to tell it that it vowed so and so 
in baptism, and that it would be a sin of the deepest dye if it 
should not, as soon as possible, attend to the things it had 
vowed. This is to fetter the exercise of reason, to rivet on the 
conscience a superstition of the worst kind, and, as far as the 
parent can, for ever deprive it of any thing worthy to be called 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 409 

liberty of conscience. Hence it is, that all Pedobaptist sects 
increase more by natural generation than by any other means. 
Very few are added to Romanists, Episcopalians, Seceders, &c., 
in any other way than by ordinary generation. 

There is nothing more congenial to civil liberty than to enjoy 
an unrestrained, unembargoed liberty of exercising the con- 
science freely upon all subjects respecting religion. Hence it is 
that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, 
has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man 
and of liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted 
by Pedobaptists ; but they never politically persecuted, though 
they have had it in their power. 

If the conscience becomes once enslaved by any undue or 
early imposition upon it, it is impossible, or next to impossible, 
ever to assume or enjoy any thing like that noble independence 
of mind which our Saviour taught in these words, *'Call no man 
Master or Father upon earth ; for one is your Father in heaven ; 
and all ye are brethren." This was in a conscientious point of 
view. The dearest liberty on earth is liberty of conscience ; 
and this lost, all other liberty is but a name — "a charm that 
lulls to sleep.'' It is an awful encroachment to encroach on 
the liberty of conscience ; and how awful to encroach upon, 
yea, deprive an infant of its liberty, before it can appreciate the 
greatness of the blessing, or calculate the magnitude of the loss. 
Could Pedobaptists but reflect on the cruelty of their practice, 
and observe what an engine of despotism it is in the hands of 
some of those sects they despise, how would they blush and for 
ever abandon the tradition ! Can they suppose it is the Spirit 
of God that adds one million annually to the church of Rome ? 
Or that it is the Spirit of God ithat adds a hundred thousand 
annually to the church of England ? Or can they believe that 
it is the same Spirit that adds a hundred thousand to the dif- 
ferent grades of Presbyterians in the same space of time? — 
seeing they are all aided by natural generation and infant 
sprinkling 1 No ; if they think as rational beings, they cannot 
think so. It is this rite, and the vows they are taught to consider 
themselves under thereby, that is the powerful cause of such 
extensive additions. Infant sprinkling is, then, an enthralling, 
despotic, and cruel rite, destructive of liberty of conscience and 
injurious to civil liberty. This will be farther manifest from 
the following item : — 

35 



410 REVIEWS OF THE 

4th. Infant sprinkling has uniformly inspired a persecuting 
spirit. This is a heavy charge, and requires to be well sup- 
ported. I do not, however, mean to say that every Pedobaptist has 
a persecuting spirit ; or that every such church is necessarily a 
persecuting church. No ; for I know many honourable excep- 
tions ; but I mean to say that infant sprinkling has, as a system, 
inspired all the parties that have embraced it vrith a persecuting 
spirit at one time or other, and they have manifested it as far 
as the civil authority supported them. Nor do I mean to go 
back to tell of the persecutions of the church of Rome in old 
times, which everybody knows: nor of the persecutions of 
countries far remote ; but I will support the fact with documents 
more striking, because more modern, and because more within 
our country. I shall begin with my own State — the good old 
State of Virginia. 

Anno Domini 1659, 1662, and 1663, several acts of the As- 
sembly of this State made it penal in parents to refuse to have 
their children baptized ; and prohibited the Quakers from as- 
sembling ; and made it penal for any master of a ship to bring 
a Quaker into the State. By the laws passed about this time, 
every person was compelled to go to church every Sunday, 
under the penalty of fifty pounds of tobacco. But Quakers 
and non-conformists were liable to the penalties of the 23d 
Elizabeth, which was £20 sterling for every month^s absence ; 
and, moreover, for every twelve months' absence, to give secu- 
rity for their good behaviour. Quakers were farther liable to a 
fine of two hundred pounds of tobacco for each one found at 
one of their meetings ; and in case of insolvency of any of 
them, those who were able, to pay for the insolvents.^ The 
persecution of the Baptists in Virginia did not extend so far as 
in some other States — at least, I can find no documents to autho- 
rize me to say that it extended farther than fines, imprison- 
ments, and the unguarded use of the tongue. James Ireland, a 
Baptist, was imprisoned in Culpepper jail, and treated very ill 
in other respects, for his tenets. A Mr. Thomas also, an active 
and useful minister, was much persecuted. The object of the 
above laws and persecution was to protect the Episcopal church, 
the salary of whose minister was first settled at sixteen thousand 

* See Henning's Statutes at Large, yolumes 1 and 2, for the aboye laws, as quoted 
l3y Mr. Semple. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 411 

pounds of tobacco, in the year 1696, to be levied by the vestry 
on the tithables of the parish, and so continued to the Ke vo- 
lution. 

So late as the year 1768, John Waller, Lewis Craig, James 
Childs, and others, were seized by the sheriff and hauled before 
three magistrates, who stood in the meeting-house yard, and 
who bound them in the penalty of one thousand pounds to ap- 
pear at court two days after. At court, they were arraigned as 
disturbers of the peace. On their trial, they were vehemently 
accused by a lawyer, who said to the court, "May it please 
your worships, these men are great disturbers of the peace ; 
they cannot meet a man on the road, but they must ram a text 
of Scripture down Ms throats As they were moving through 
the streets of Fredericksburg, they sang the hymn, " Broad is 
the road that leads to death." Waller and his companions con- 
tinued in jail forty-three days, and were discharged without any 
conditions. While in prison, they continually preached through 
the grates; and, although the mob prevented the people from 
hearing as much as possible, yet many heard to their permanent 
advantage. After their discharge, they preached as before. 
Sometimes their enemies rode into the water to mock them bap- 
tizing; and often mocked them when preaching, by playing 
cards and drinking spirits while they were preaching. " Two 
noted sons of Belial, who were notorious for these practices, 
named Kemp and Davis, both died soon after, ravingly dis- 
tracted, each accusing the other for having led him into these 
crimes.'' 

** In Goochland county, these persecutions raged vehemently. 
On the 10th of August, 1771, while a Mr. Webster was preach- 
ing from these words, * Show me thy faith without thy works, 
and I will show thee my faith by my works,' a magistrate pushed 
up, and drew back his club to knock him down. Some person 
caught the club and prevented mischief. Being backed by two 
sheriffs, he seized Messrs. Webber, Waller, Greenwood, and 
Ware. They were committed to prison. They were retained 
thirty days in close confinement and fed on bread and water. 
As they preached through the grates and made many converts, 
they were glad to let them go on their giving bond for good be- 
haviour. A thousand false reports from the pulpit and the 
press, misrepresenting the doctrines and practices of these holy 
men, were among the means employed to keep up this fiery trial. 



412 REVIEWS OF THE 

But the Ke volution took the power out of the hands of their per- 
secutors, and their cause triumphed." This is a small specimen 
of the Pedobaptist persecution of the Baptists in Virginia, which 
will suffice my purpose in the mean time. — (See Benedict's His- 
tory of the Baptists, vol. 2, pp. 63-73.) I shall now quote a 
few facts from history in support of this item, to show that not 
only the Pedobaptists of the Episcopacy, but those of other Pro- 
testant sects, manifested the same spirit. In the good State of 
Massachusetts, (which I select not as the only State in which 
persecution raged, but as eminent for the exercise of this zeal,) 
the Baptists suffered much for many years. In this State, in 
the year 1644, we are informed by Mr. Hubbard, that a poor 
man, by the name of Painter, suddenly became a Baptist ; and 
having a child born, would not suffer his wife to carry it to be 
baptized. He was complained of to the court, and was enjoined 
by it to suffer his child to be baptized. He had the impu- 
dence to tell them that infant baptism was an antichristian ordi- 
nance : for which he was tied up and whipped ! 

About this time, a law was passed for the suppression of the 
Baptists. After a long preamble, in which the Baptists were ac- 
cused of two great crimes — the one, for denying that the civil 
magistrate could lawfully inspect or punish men for any breach 
of the laws in the first table of the law ; the other, for saying 
that infants should not be baptized ; it concludes with these 
words : ** It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons 
within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose 
the baptism of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from 
the approbation thereof, or shall purposely depart the congrega- 
tion at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordi- 
nance of the magistracy, or their lawful right to make war, or 
to punish the outward breaches of the first table, and shall ap- 
pear to the court wilfully and obstinately to continue therein, 
after due time and means of conviction, every such person shall 
be sentenced to banishment.'^ Of this act, Mr. Hubbard, their own 
historian, says, " But with what success, it is hard to say, all 
men being naturally inclined to pity them that suffer ; and the 
clergy, doubtless, had a hand in framing this shameful act, as 
they, at this time, were the secretaries and counsellors of the 
legislature.'' 

About this time, the Westminster Divines sat in London. A 
book written by one of the Baptist ministers was dedicated to 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 413 

the Westminster Divines. Soon after the news reached England 
of the law to banish the Baptists, Mr. Tombes sent a copy of 
this work to the ministers of New England, and, with it, an epis- 
tle dated from the Temple in London, May 25, 1645, " hoping 
thereby to put them upon a more exact study of that contro- 
versy, and to allay their vehemency against the Baptists." 
" But the Westminster Assembly,'^ says Backus, " were more 
ready to learn severity from this country, than these were to 
learn lenity from any.'' 

All letters and remonstrances proved ineffectual with the New- 
England divines. They held fast their integrity ; and in 1651 
the Baptists were unmercifully whipped, and, not long after, the 
Quakers were murderously hung."^ 

The non causa pro causa, or the assigning of a false cause for 
a true one, is a form of sophistry into which our best educated 
theologians not unfrequently fall. We have a very striking 
illustration of a refined species of this sophism in the following 
extracts from a very interesting writer and tourist, George B. 
Cheever, D.D., an author of deserved reputation. He gives to 
a second cause what is really due to the first. The union of 
Church and State with him appears to be the entire cause of re- 
ligious persecution. But who pleads for and institutes the 
union of Church and State ? In other words, what is the cau,3e 
of this union ? Pedohaptism ! — I affirm, Pedobaptism. The Pe- 
dobaptists, one and all, unite the Church and the State. They 
would, if they could, bring the whole world into the church by 
the sheer force of natural birth, without a second birth. Hence, 
so far as their influence goes, the Church and State are united. 
In Roman Catholic countries it is all Church and no State. The 
Jewish commonwealth is their beau ideal of a Christian Church 
State. The whole nation sealed as soon as born with the seal 
of God's covenant. Hence, every Pedobaptist church has perse- 
cuted in the ratio of its power. The formal union of Church 
and State is but the natural operation of infant baptism. What- 
ever, then, we now cite from Dr. Cheever as the fruit of a Church 
and State institution, is to be ascribed, not to this effect, but to 
its cause — Pedobaptism. With this in mind, we shall now read 
a few extracts from the doctor, taken from his Wanderings of a 
Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau Alp : — 

* Benedict, page 364. 
35* 



414 REVIEWS OF THE 

" The history of Geneva is singular, as containing within itself 
a demonstration that, under every form, both of truth and error, 
the State and Church united are intolerant. The State oppresses 
the Church — the Church, in her turn, tempted by the State, op- 
presses those who differ from her, and so the work goes on. At 
first it was the State and Eomanism — the fruit, intolerance ; the 
next, it was the State and Unitarianism — the fruit, intolerance ; 
next, it was the State and Calvinism — the fruit, intolerance ; in 
the Canton de Vaud, it is the State and democratic infidelity — • 
the fruit, intolerance. The demonstration is such that no man 
can resist its power. Inoculate the Church, so to speak, with 
the State, and the same plague invariably follows ; no constitu- 
tion, not the most heavenly, is proof against the virus. 

" John Knox, escaping from the castle of St. Andrews in Scot- 
land, and compelled to flee the kingdom for his life, found secu- 
rity in Geneva, because there his religion was the religion of the 
State. If it had not been, he would merely have gone out from 
one fire for another fire to devour him. Servetus, escaping in 
like manner from a Eoman Catholic prison in France, where 
he would otherwise have been burned in person, as he was in 
effigy, fled also to Geneva ; but Ms religion not being the reli- 
gion of the State, the evangelical republic burned him. And 
thus the grand error of the Reformers in the union of Church 
and State occasioned what perhaps is the darkest crime that 
stains the annals of Reformation. The burning of Servetus in 
Roman Catholic fires would have added but an imperceptible 
shade to the blackness of darkness in a system which invariably 
has been one of intolerance and cruelty. But the man was per- 
mitted by Divine Providence to escape, and come to Geneva to 
be burned alive there, by a State allied to a system of faith and 
mercy, to show to all the world that even that system cannot be 
trusted with human power ; that the State, in connection with 
the Church, though it be the purest church in the world, will 
bring forth intolerance and murder. The union is adulterous, 
the progeny is sinful works, even though the mother be the im- 
bodied profession of justification by faith. God^s mercy be- 
comes changed into man's cruelty. So in the brightest spot of 
piety then on the face of the earth, amidst the out-shining glory 
of the great doctrine of the gospel, justification by faith, God 
permitted the smoke and the cry of torture by fire to go up to 
heaven, to teach the nations that even purity of doctrine, if en- 
forced hj the State, will produce the bitterest fruits of a cor- 
rupt gospel and an infidel apostasy ; that is the lesson read in 
the smoke of the funeral pyre of Servetus, as it rolls up black 
against the stars of heaven, that the union of Church and State, 
even of a pure church in a free State, is the destruction of reli- 
gious liberty. 

** It was this pestiferous evil that at one time banished from 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 415 

the Genevese State its greatest benefactor, Calvin himself: the 
working of the same poison excludes now from the pulpit of the 
State some of the brightest ornaments of the ministry of 
modern times — such men as Malan, D'Aubigne, and Gaussen. 
It is true that it is the corruption of doctrine and hatred of Di- 
vine truth that have produced this last step ; but it could not 
have been taken had the Church of Christ in Geneva been, as 
she should be, independent of the State. Such measures as 
these are, however, compelling the Church of Christ to assume 
an independent attitude, which, under the influence of past habit 
and example, she would not have taken. Thus it is that God 
brings light of darkness and good out of evil. 

"These are the views of great men in Switzerland — Vinetand 
Burnier, D' Aubigne and Gaussen ; and in this movement it may 
be hoped that the evangelical church in Geneva will yet take 
the foremost place in all Europe. But as yet, says Merle D^Au- 
bigne, * we are small and weak. Placed by the hands of God 
in the centre of Europe, surrounded with Popish darkness, we 
have much to do, and we are weak. We have worked in Ge- 
neva ; and we maintain there the evangelical truth on one side 
against Unitarian Rationalism', and on the other side against 
Papistical Despotism. The importance of the Christian doctrine 
is beginning to be again felt in Geneva. Our canton is becoming a 
mixed one, and we are assailed by many Roman Catholics coming 
to our country to establish themselves there.' Nevertheless, our 
hope is strong in the interposition of God by his good Spirit, 
which will yet take the elements of evil and change their very 
nature into good. 

" Dr. Gaussen, the able coadjutor of D'Aubigne, and author 
of the admirable work on Inspiration, entitled Theopneustia, was 
pastor of the parish of Santigny, in the canton of Geneva, ip the 
year 1815. It was about this time that he likewise became a 
Christian, and preached the way of salvation through faith in 
Christ crucified. In his teachings among his flock, Dr. Gaussen, 
becoming dissatisfied with the Catechism imposed for instruc- 
tion by the national church, principally because it had no ac- 
knowledgment of the great fundamental truths of the gospel, 
laid it aside, and proceeded to teach the children and candidates 
for communion in his own way. For this he was brought before 
the " Venerable Company of Pastors,'' and finally was by them 
censured, and suspended for a year of his right to sit in the Com- 
pany. 

" But Dr. Gaussen and his friends, D'Aubigne and others, 
nothing terrified by their adversaries, proceeded still farther. 
They framed the Evangelical Society of Geneva, took measures 
for the preaching of the gospel in the city, and established, 
though in weakness and fear and in much trembling, yet in re- 
liance upon God, the Evangelical Theological Seminary. Find- 



416 REVIEWS OP THE 

ing that all efforts and threatenings to prevent or stay their 
career was in vain, the Venerable Company proceeded, in 1831, 
to reject Mr. Gaussen from the functions of pastor of Santigny, 
and to interdict Messrs. Gaussen, Galland, and Merle from all 
the functions of the pulpit in the churches and chapels of the 
canton. What a spectacle was this ! It recalls to mind the ac- 
tion of the Genevese republic three hundred years before, in the 
banishment of Calvin and Farel from the city. The result has 
been happy in the highest degree. Forced out of the national 
church, these men have been made to feel what at first it is so dif- 
ficult to be convinced of, that the church of Christ belongs to 
Christ, and not to any nation. They see that there is a new 
transfiguration, a new approximating step of glory for the re- 
formed church in Europe, in which she shall become free in 
Christ — shall assume her true catholicity, her supremacy, her in- 
dependence ; becoming for ever and everywhere a church in the 
spirit, the truth, and the liberty of Christ. 

" In Geneva the church is in subjection. The people cannot 
choose their pastors ; their pastors are compelled to receive every 
man to Christian communion as an indiscriminate right of citi- 
zenship. At a certain age, every young man comes into the 
church by law,* no matter how depraved, and declares in the 
most solemn manner that he believes, from the bottom of his 
heart, the dogmas in which his pastor has instructed him ; that 
he will still hold to them, and renounce the world and its pomps. 
For entering the army, for becoming an apprentice, for obtain- 
ing any employ, the young man must take the communicant's 
oath. Have you been to the communion ? is the test question — 
first and implacable. Hence, if a pastor should refuse the com- 
munion to a young libertine, the candidate and the whole family 
would regard it as the highest insult and injustice, debarring 
the young man from rights sacred to him as a citizen, shutting 
indeed the door of all civil advancement against him. To say 
nothing of piety, how can even morality itself be preserved in a 
church in such degrading subjection to the civil power ? 

" The constitution of Geneva is such, that by its provisions 
there is no liberty of instruction or congregation but only by au- 
thority of the Council of State. The ninth and tenth articles 
provide that liberty of instruction shall be guarantied to all 
Genevese, only under the reserve of dispositions prescribed by 
the laws for the interest of public order and good manners ; and 
also that no corporation or congregation can be established with- 
out the authority of the Council of State. It is easy to see that 
with such a constitution of Church and State, the Romanists 
have every thing made easy to their hand in Geneva, and only 

* Do not all come into the church by baptism — infant baptism, though ' in the 
flesh,' and ' naturally depraved ! !' A. C. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 417 

need a civil majority, when, by appointing their own Council of 
State, they can put every heretical congregation to the torture, 
and forbid, by law, any school or assembly of instruction or 
worship other than pleases them, under whatever severity of 
penalty they may choose to impose. No wonder that the cry 
of every Christian patriot in Geneva should be, Separate Church 
and State ! Separate Church and State ! May God help them 
in their struggle after liberty V^ 

So, then, whether in connection with Orthodoxy or Hetero- 
doxy, Papalism, Protestantism, High Church, or Low Church, 
Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, Pedobaptism becomes Church 
and State, and, as such, persecutes to confiscation of goods, 
banishment, and death. 



CHAPTER IX. 

DR. C. TAYLOR, EDITOR OF CALMEt's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE. 

APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 

''Facts" and "Evidences" on "the Subjects and Mode** of Christian Bap- 
tism, by C. Taylor, Editor of Calmefs Dictionary of the Bible, Stereotype 
edition. New York, 1850. Published by M. W. Dodd. 

This is a boastful and boasted performance. It is affirmed by 
the publisher that **the American Baptists, like their British 
brethren, have not ventured either to dispute the facts,* or to 
invalidate the evidences.'' 

Again : it is affirmed " that an erudite polemic cannot be found, 
who will seriously controvert Mr. Taylor's oracular position. 
Baptism, from the day of Pentecost, was administered by the 
apostles and evangelists to infants, and not by submersion. 
Therefore, the subsequent facts and evidences are as irrefuta- 
ble as the truth in Jesus." 

Such is the frontispiece to this learned duodecimo of 236 
pages. And so confident is the author of his positions, that he 

* The " Facts and Evidences" is the title of a pamphlet published by the Editor 
of Calmet's Dictionary, in 1815, " on the mode of baptism," and addressed to a 
Deacon of a Baptist Church, with two plates, " showing some ancient baptisms, in 
the porticos of churches." 



418 REVIEWS OP THE 

says, " for his facts and evidences he desires neither grace nor 
favour/' P. 7. Again : he says that the more learned Baptists 
now confess that infants are included in the term oikos, family, 
as used in the New Testament ; while it is curious to observe 
the difficulties to which they are reduced, who contend that in- 
fants are excluded from the term ^' family, '^"^ an^ that the word 
must be restricted to adults. If our translators had employed 
ihe term family, instead of the words house and household, the 
sect of Baptists never would have existed! What a misfortune, 
that the English word ^^ family^' had not been adopted by the 
Greeks, Komans, French, Germans, and all other nations, since 
its mere " adoption^^ by our translators, would have for ever pre- 
vented the existence of that deluded sect called Baptists ! 

This disquisition on oikos and oikia, with no less than twelve 
pictures, (hallowed number !) engravings of ancient baptisms in 
the porticos of Koman cathedrals or Greek churches, exhibiting 
some water or oil being poured on the head of the subject, is the 
sum total of the volume. 

As to the disquisition on oikos and oikia, we have already de- 
monstrated that it is wholly gratuitous. If we should admit 
that oikos and oikia meant family, and always family, and no- 
thing but family, unless it was proved that every family must ne- 
cessarily have infants in it, it is of no logical force whatever. It 
is mere mockery of reason and argument — a puerile assumption, 
of which any scholar ought to be ashamed. We will most cheer- 
fully concede that some families were baptized in the apostolic 
age, even many more than reported. What then ! We still 
have among us family baptisms. But two family baptisms are 
reported in the New Testament — Lydia's and the jailer's. 
Other households of baptized persons are named — the household 
of Stephanas ; that of Cornelius, the Centurion ; that of Onesi- 
phorus ; the house of Chloe ; the house of Philip ; the house of 
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus ; the house of Priscilla and Aquila. 
In not one of which there is the slightest evidence that there 
was an infant ; but, on the contrary, we have all the internal 
and circumstantial evidence in each, that in all the points in 
which they are considered or alluded to, there was not an infant 



* No Baptist author, known to me, has ever affirmed that infants are excluded 
from the terms oikos or oikia, hut only from the families, so called, in which bap- 
tism is named. 



ADVOCATES OP INFANT BAPTISM. 419 

in one of them. No man that has a proper respect for his head 
and his heart, or his education, can, so far as we ought to judge, 
argue from oikos, oikia, family, Jiouse, or household, in favour of 
infant baptism. This argument from oikos or oikia was very 
satisfactorily disposed of almost thirty years ago, in my debate 
with Dr. McCalla. This was proved, as Christianity itself is 
sometimes proved, not merely by the first acclamation, but by 
the thousands and the myriads of intelligent Pedobaptists that 
have, in our own time, repudiated it, and, by overt acts, have 
renounced family and infant baptism, and voluntarily put on 
Christ by an immersion into his death. 

But, besides the argument in favour of infant baptism, deduced 
from the family baptisms alluded to, we have no less than twelve 
pictures on the subject, collected from the vestibules and domes 
of the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. The first is that 
of the baptism of Christ, placed at the entrance of the great 
church at Pisa. Pisan tradition says this marble ornament was 
carried from Jerusalem by the Crusaders, about the commence- 
ment of the twelfth century. The Baptist stands with his hand 
upon the Saviour's head. The second is the baptism of the same 
subject in Jordan, taken from the church on the Via Ostiensis 
at Rome. The door which it covers is dated 1070. The third 
is from the door of the church at Beneventum, in Italy. Here 
Jesus is standing in a bath up to the middle, and the Baptist is 
pouring water on his head. The fourth is that of Jesus stand- 
ing in the Jordan, with the Baptist pouring water, in streams, 
on his head. There is a centrepiece in the dome of the baptis- 
tery at Ravenna, a. d. 454. Here the Baptist stands on the 
bank of the river, pouring water out of a shell on the Saviour's 
head. Over his head is a crown of glory, and a dove, per- 
sonating the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven to his person. 
The fifth is a representation, in Mosaic, of the Saviour's baptism 
in Jordan. Here, again, a patera, or a shell, is employed in 
pouring water on his person. This stands in the church in Cos- 
medin, at Ravenna, erected a. d. 401. The sixth is a represen- 
tation of a bath, or baptismal fount, standing in the baptistery 
of Constantino, in Rome, near the Lateran. This is too shallow 
for immersion. The seventh argument is the baptism of a 
heathen king and queen, in a family bath at Chigi, near Na- 
ples, with a priest standing as if taking aim at the king's head, 
with a pitcher in his hand, a. d. 591. The eighth proof is that 



420 REVIEWS OF THE 

of a kneeKng candidate, with a priest holding a vase, or pit- 
cher, at his head. He seems to be on the dry ground. The 
ninth is that of a hoy, unclothed, receiving a stream from a 
pitcher. This is found in Rome, though the work of a Greek 
artist. The tenth is Laurentius, in the church of St. Lawrence, 
in Rome, or near it — extra muros — ^receiving a stream from a 
vase. The eleventh, that of Constantino the Great, Emperor of 
Rome, being immersed in a bath ; but also receiving a stream 
of oil or water falling upon his head from a vial, held by a long- 
robed priest. The twelfth is that of Jesus Christ, baptized by 
John in the Jordan, standing on the bank, with one hand on 
or near to his head. No shell nor vial is seen in the picture. 
Probably, the baptizer had dipped his finger in the Jordan. 
This stands in the chapel of the baptistery, in the small church 
of the Catacomb Pontianus, with a lamb at his foot. The bap- 
tizers, though I have called them priests, from their costume, 
are said to have been laymen; and Mr. Taylor admits the allega- 
tion, and quiets all scruples by the concession, that, in all 
extreme cases, baptism by the hand of laymen is of Divine au- 
thority, and, consequently, canonical and valid. 

Now, the grand and solemn question is. What does all this 
prove ? It proves not when the custom began, nor when these 
pictures were made; and if it did, they are all hundreds of years 
too late to prove primitive apostolic baptism. No one can, with 
any measure of self-respect, deny this. And this admitted, 
places these twelve arguments on the shelf, lettered, "old wives' 

FABLES V 

In the next place, statuaries, sculptors, and painters are al- 
ways fond of catering to public taste and fashion, and will make 
to order any number of marble or other ornaments, just as Mr. 
Sartain, in his pictorial magazine, or as printers do in the Fa- 
mily Bible — make such representations of angels, men, cos- 
tumes, and customs, as will command the highest admiration, 
secure the largest sale, and the most liberal price. 

Thus, we see in one New Testament, in an orthodox pulpit, 
quite as sacred as the vestibule of St. Peter's, or the dome of 
St. Paul's, a pictorial representation of Paul's conversion. The 
admiration and taste of the artist conceived that it would be 
more pleasing to present Paul as a fine, athletic-looking man, 
mounted on a fiery Arabian courser, on his way to Damascus. 
And when arrested on his journey, by a glance of the Lord and 



ADVOCATES OF INFANT BAPTISM. 421 

the majesty of his voice, the affrighted steed, springing like a 
deer from its lair, in frenzied mood plunging in the desert, 
unsaddles his rider and flings him over his head ; while the un- 
horsed apostle, pertinacious of his hold of the bridle, brings 
him to the ground, and appears as if about to rise, whip in 
hand, with full intent, in sad distraction, wildly looking hither 
and thither, as if to lay upon him the weight of his indignant 
arm. How suitable to such an event is such a scene, however 
well executed and elegantly decorated by the hand of a gifted 
artist ! 

Again: open our elegant Family Bibles of the nineteenth 
century, and what idea do they give of the Saviour^s bap- 
tism in the Jordan ! You will see opposite to the account of 
his baptism, or on the frontispiece of the volume, John the Im- 
merser, alias, John the Baptist, standing upon a bluff bank of 
the Jordan, or, in other pictures, standing ankle-deep in its mar- 
gin, lifting up a handful, or pouring a hornful, of the water of 
the river upon his head ; while a dove, on its wing, is descend- 
ing from an open sky, in the direction of the imposing scene. 
Now, what does this prove, but the ignorance or impiety of 
painters of the present day? And just so much, neither more 
nor less, do these twelve pictures, the twelve unanswerable ar- 
guments of C. Taylor, in favour of the pagan rite of sprinkling 
holy water, under the imposing name of Christian baptism, 
alias, Roman rantism ! It is a fearful deception practised upon 
the credulity of an untaught and unteachable population. "0 
my people, they which lead thee (or call thee blessed) cause 
thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths !''* " They have 
«poken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded 
them; even I know and am a witness, saith the Lord.'^f 

* Isa. iii. 12. t J^r. xxix. 23. 

36 



422 QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 



CHAPTER X. 

ONE HUNPRED AND THIRTY-FOUR QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

We design this essay especially for the most uneducated por- 
tion of the reading community : embracing in its details the 
whole subject, action, and design of baptism. We, therefore, 
adopt the method of question and answer, as most instructive 
and impressive ; only premising that our answers shall always 
be those, and those only, which the Holy Scriptures, history, 
and human experience authenticate and sustain. 

Query 1. Who was the first Baptist ? Answer, John, the har- 
binger of Christ, called ^^John the Baptist J' 

Q. 2. From whom did he receive authority to baptize? 
A, Not from men, but from God. He was sent by God to bap- 
tize, and did not institute it himself, nor learn it from the Jews, 
John i. 33. 

Q. 3. Where did he baptize? A. In the Jordan, and at Enon, 
"because there was much water there." 

Q. 4. Did those he baptized make confession ? A, They 
"were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.'' 

Q, 5. Were they led or carried to his baptism? A, "There 
went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the regiou 
round about the Jordan, and were baptized by him in the Jor- 
dan." 

Q. 6. Who was the most distinguished person whom he bap- 
tized ? A, The Saviour of the world. 

Q, 7. For what purpose was he baptized? A, Neither for 
confessing his sins, nor for receiving remission of them ; but 
" to fulfil all righteousness," or to honour the righteous institu- 
tions of God. "Thus," said he, "it becomes us to fulfil all 
righteousness," or observe every Divine institution. 

Q. 8. How old was Jesus when baptized ? A, About thirty 
years old. 

Q, 9. Had Jesus been circumcised when an infant ? A, Hq 
was circumcised the eighth day. 

Q, 10. Had all those that John baptized been circumcised ? 
A, Yes : they were all Jews. 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 423 

Q. 11. What do you infer from this fact ? A. That baptism 
did not come in the room of circumcision ; otherwise no Jews 
would have been baptized. 

Q. 12. When was Christian baptism introduced? A. Not 
till John the Baptist had been beheaded, and Jesus Christ cru- 
cified ; almost four years after the baptism of John. 

Q, 13. Where was it instituted ? ^. On a mountain of Gali- 
lee. 

Q. 14. By whom ? A, By the Saviour in person. 

Q. 15. In what words ? A, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you -/' or, according to the Evangelist Mark, " Go 
ye into all the world ; preach the gospel to every creature. He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that be- 
lieveth not shall be damned.'' 

Q, 16. To whom was this commission given? A, To the 
Apostles of Christ. 

Q. 17. When and where did they begin to act under it? 
A, On the first Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus into hea- 
ven, and in the city of Jerusalem. 

Q, 18. How many were, there and then, baptized ? A, Three 
thousand souls. 

Q. 19. What qualification was required by the Apostles act- 
ing under this commission ? A, Kepentance. 

Q, 20. Repeat the words. A. " Repent and be baptized, every 
one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus.'^ 

Q. 21. Any other indication implying whether none but pro- 
fessed, believing penitents were baptized on that occasion? 
A, " They that gladly received his word were baptized.'' Acts 
ii. 41. 

Q. 22. Are infants capable of understanding, believing, and 
gladly receiving a preached gospel ? A, Not such as we have 
in this age of the world. 

Q, 23. What, then, would you infer concerning the first three 
thousand persons baptized by the Apostles of Christ ? A. That 
there were no infants, nor families having infants, baptized by 
the Apostles in establishing the first Christian church ever 
planted on earth. 

Q. 24. Had all the males baptized by the Apostles on this 
occasion been circumcised ? A, Being Jews, they must have 



424 QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

been circumcised; for the Jews were called "the circumci- 
sion/' 

Q. 25. And what would you infer from this? A. That bap- 
tism was not a substitute for circumcision, as some vainly ima- 
gine ; for, then, how could the Apostles have baptized those 
who had been circumcised ? 

Q, 26. What accommodations were there for baptism in Jeru- 
salem? A. There were pools of water, public and private 
baths in Jerusalem, as well as the brook Kedron, near the pub- 
lic garden where Jesus oft resorted with his disciples. 

Q, 27. Where did the second great baptism occur ? A, In 
Samaria. 

Q. 28. How is it reported ? A, Philip, an Evangelist, went 
down from Jerusalem, after many thousands had been baptized 
there, to the city of Samaria, and preached to them the same 
gospel. Many of the Samaritans, we are informed, "hearing, 
believed and were baptized, both men and women.'' 

Q, 29, Why did not the history say, "Men, women, and chil- 
dren?" A. Because, I presume, there were no children; for, in 
being so particular in detailing who heard, believed, and were 
baptized, so far as to respect the sex of the parties, the same 
particularity would have induced him to have added children, 
had children been amongst them. Thus it is that silence, 
by force of circumstances, is sometimes equivalent to a nega- 
tive. 

Q. 30. But is not this clearly indicated in the context ? 
A. Yes. In the qualifications of those baptized, there are enu- 
merated those which exclude the conception of speechless babes. 
We are informed that they believed Philip, Jiearing and seeing the 
miracles which he performed, before they were baptized. They 
were capable of seeing or contemplating a miracle, of perceiv- 
ing the meaning of it, and of believing the preacher before they 
were baptized. 

Q. 31. Were the Samaritans circumcised persons ? A, Yes : 
they were the circumcised children of the covenant that God 
made with Abraham ; for, though at this time a mongrel people, . 
they practised circumcision. 

Q. 32. Having, then, found, neither amongst the Jews at Je- 
rusalem, nor amongst the mongrel Jews of Samaria, a single 
instance of baptism without a previous hearing and believing, 
or professing of faith in the Messiah, we have all scriptural evi- 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 425 

dence against infant sprinkling or infant baptism ; to whom 
(Shall we next look ? A, To the next case reported. 

Q. 33. And what is the next case reported? A, It is that of 
the Ethiopian officer, treasurer of an Ethiopian queen, who 
heard Philip preach the same gospel, and was, on profession of 
that faith, baptized in a certain water to which they came on 
their journey. 

Q. 34. And what was the next baptism reported in the Acts 
of the Apostles ? A, It is that of Saul of Tarsus. Doubtless, 
he was a believing subject. 

Q. 35. And how was he baptized? A, Neither while sitting 
nor standing. We are not informed in what place, but that he 
was commanded to ame, and, of course, to accompany Ananias 
somewhere. *^ Arise,'' said he, **why tarriest thou, and be bap- 
tized, and wash away your sins, calling upon the name of the 
Lord.'' He, accordingly, arose and accompanied him to a suit- 
able place, and was baptized. 

Q, 36. Having now seen, from an induction of the first con- 
verts in Jerusalem, Samaria, Damascus, and Ethiopia, that all 
baptized persons were first taught and instructed in the way of 
the Lord before their baptism, and not one indication of a dif- 
ferent practice, what is wanting to complete this chapter of 
evidences? A, "We must look from the Jews — whether in 
Jerusalem, Samaria, Damascus, or Ethiopia — to the Gentiles. 
Perhaps, there was a different dispensation of baptism to the 
Gentiles. 

Q, 37. And what were the circumstances of the baptism or 
conversion of the aliens ? A, The Gentiles were, indeed, aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the cove- 
nants of promise. But admission to the new dispensation was 
proposed to Jews and Gentiles on the same premises, because 
God is not a God of the Jews, but of the Gentiles also ; and he 
made no difference, says an Apostle, between them, "purifying 
their hearts by faith." 

Q. 38. But give us a case. Where was the first baptism of 
Gentiles? A, At Cesarea. Cornelius, an Italian captain, an 
intelligent, pious, and prayerful soldier, with his family and 
personal friends, were the first-fruits of the nations to Christ. 
All the converts of that day heard, believed, and received the 
Holy Spirit before they were baptized. It was in reference to 
these that Peter challenged the Jews, his companions from 

36* 



426 QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

Joppa, asking if any of them dare refuse baptism to these en- 
lightened and sanctified pagans. He then commanded them, 
so distinguished with knowledge, faith, and the Holy Spirit, to 
be baptized in the name, or by the authority, of the Lord. 
Such Gentiles, then, as believed and were enlightened, were to 
be baptized by the authority of the Lord. 

Q, 39. Have we any other public baptisms reported among 
the Gentiles? A, We have the baptism of the Corinthians, 
under the ministry of the Apostle Paul. 

Q, 40. What are the details of their baptism ? A. We are 
solemnly told, that many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed, 
and were baptized. 

Q. 41. Had infant baptism been preached in those days, how 
would it have read? A, "Many infants, being baptized, be- 
lieved and heard.'' 

Q, 42. Would it not be incongruous to say, that they first be- 
lieved and then heard? A, Not in the least more unprece- 
dented or more unreasonable than to say, that they were first 
baptized and then believed. According to the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, and the tenor of the New Testament, it is as good sense, 
as good style, and as fully authorized, to say, many infants first 
believed and then heard the gospel, as to say, many infanta 
were baptized and then believed the gospel. 

Q. 43. But is it generally true, in fact, that baptized infants 
do afterwards believe the gospel ? A, It may sometimes hap- 
pen : but experience or accurate observation would prove, ac- 
cording to our observation, that, taking Pedobaptist Christendom 
into the account, not a tithe of baptized infants do really ever 
believe the gospel. 

Q, 44. Of sixty millions of Russian baptized infants — of one 
hundred millions of Roman sprinkled infants — and of fifty mil- 
lions of Lutheran, and Episcopal, and Presbyterian, and Metho- 
distic sprinkled or poured infants, can any one reasonably con- 
clude, from all published data, that, in the aggregate, ten or 
eleven millions of them really and truly believe the gospel to 
the salvation of their souls ? A. If so, surely the millennium 
must be at the door. 

Q. 45. Waiving all matters of doubtful disputation on the 
premises, what is laid down in the Acts of the Apostles as the 
indispensable qualifications necessary to baptism? A, "If thou 
believest with all thy heart, thou mayest.'' 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 427 

Q. 46. Did you ever read of the baptism of any infants in the 
Scriptures ? A. No. 

Q. 47. Did you ever read of the sprinkling of any infants in 
the Scriptures ? ^. No. 

Q, 48. Whose commandment, then, do we obey in having 
our infants baptized or sprinkled ? A, The commandment of 
the clergy. 

Q. 49. Do we transgress any Divine command in neglecting 
to have our infants baptized ? A, No : I never read of any one 
being accused of this sin in the Bible, nor of any commandment 
that was thereby transgressed. 

Q. 50. Did you ever read of any sponsors in the Bible ? 
A, No. 

Q, 51. "What do you mean by a sponsor^ A» I mean one 
that promises and engages for another in baptism. 

Q, 52. Did you ever read in the Scriptures of any one pro- 
mising any thing for another in baptism ? ^. No : no pro- 
mise of parent nor child, at baptism, is ever mentioned in the 
Bible. 

Q. 53. Whence originated the custom of promising and vow- 
ing in baptism ? A. From the clergy. 

Q, 54. Did you ever read in the Scriptures of any vows 
that minors or adults were under in consequence of baptism ? 
A. None. 

Q. 55. What are the promises given to baptized infants or 
minors, in the New Testament ? A, None. 

Q. 56. What are the threats denounced against them that 
neglect to have their infants baptized? A, Many from the 
clergy, but none from the Bible. 

Q. 57. Is Baptism a command? A, Yes: "Be baptized, every 
one of you." 

Q. 58. Should not every Divine command be obeyed? A. Yes. 

Q. 59. In what does religious obedience consist? A. In a 
voluntary act of an intelligent agent. 

Q. 60. Is a person active or passive in obeying a command ? 
A. Active. 

Q. 61. Is an infant active or passive, conscious or uncon- 
scious, in receiving baptism ? A, It is passive and unconscious. 

Q. 62, Can a being that is passive and unconscious in suffer- 
ing an action, be said to be obeying a command in that same 
action ? A. By no means. 



^28 QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

Q, 63. Can those persons who have been baptized in infancy 
be said, on the foregoing principles, to have obeyed the Divine 
command, "Be baptized?^' A. No: impossible. 

Q, 64. Is baptism an act of religious worship ? A, Yes : 
all Divine ordinances were appointed for us to worship God 
thereby. 

$.65. How must acceptable worship be performed? A, **In 
spirit and in truth." **God is a Spirit; and they that worship 
him must worship him in spirit and in truth." 

Q, 66. Can unthinking and unconscious infants worship God 
in spirit and in truth ? A, No. 

Q, 67. Can they, then, in conformity with these principles, 
be baptized as an act of religious worship ? A, No. 

Q. 68. Is baptism appointed for the benefit of the subject ? 
A, Yes. 

Q, 69. Are there any benefits resulting from baptism in this 
life ? A. Many. 

Q. 70. What are the benefits resulting from baptism in this 
life ? A, They are briefly comprehended in one sentence — viz. 
**The answer of a good conscience towards God." 1 Pet. iii. 21. 

Q, 71. In what does the answer of a good conscience consist? 
A, In three things: — 1st. The knowledge of the meaning of 
baptism. 2d. A belief of the fact and import of the death and 
resurrection of Christ, to which baptism refers. 3d. In the con- 
sciousness of our own minds that we have voluntarily and intel- 
ligently obeyed the Divine command. See Rom. vi. 1-6 ; 1 Pet. 
iii. 20-22. 

Q, 72. Can any infant be conscious of these things in bap- 
tism ; or can it afterwards reflect that it intelligently, volunta- 
rily, and cheerfully obeyed the Divine command? A, It is ut- 
terly impossible. 

Q. 73. Is there, then, no way in which an infant can obtain 
by reflection or otherwise, the answer of a good conscience from 
baptism? A, None. 

Q, 74. Can an adult, when instructed in the import of bap- 
tism, receive any consolation from reflecting that his parents 
had him baptized when an infant ? A, No, unless it be a delu- 
sive consolation ; for the answer of a good conscience can only 
be enjoyed through an inward consciousness that the subject 
has intelligently and voluntarily obeyed a Divine command- 
ment. 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 429 

Q, 75. How does any adult know that he was baptized in in- 
fancy? A. By the report of others. 

Q, 76. Is there any duty inculcated in the New Testament 
that requires us only to have the testimony of others for our hav- 
ing performed it ? A, Not one. 

Q. 77. Is there any promise accompanying our obedience to 
the commands of God ? A, Yes : "In keeping of them there is 
a great reward.'^ Ps. xix. 11 ; Prov. iii. 16-18, xi. 18, xxix. 18 ; 
Heb. xi. 6-26 ; James i. 25. 

Q. 78. Is there any reward accompanying infant baptism ? 
A, None, except "the praise of men." 

Q, 79. Is there any peculiar promise accompanying baptism ? 
-4. Yes; the promise of the Divine Spirit as a "Comforter." 
Acts ii. 38, xix. 2-7. 

Q, 80. What were the immediate duties of those baptized ? 
A. Union with the church and obedience to all the command- 
ments and ordinances. 

Q, 81. How soon were the baptized added to the church? 
A, '^ That same day,'' "and they continued steadfastly in the 
Apostles' doctrine, in breaking of bread, in fellowship, and in 
prayers." Acts ii. 41, 42. 

Q, 82. Is this true of any infants after baptism ? -4. No ; it 
never was, nor in the nature of things can it ever be. 

Q, 83. What is the necessary qualification to all parts of 
Christian practice ? A, Faith. 

Q, 84. Is there no Christian duty to be performed without 
faith in the subject? A, None. 

Q. 85. Why so ? A. Because " without faith it is impossible 
to please God." Heb. xi. 6. 

Q. 86. Can it then be pleasing to God to baptize or sprinkle 
infants ? A. No, seeing that without faith it is impossible to 
please God. 

Q, 87. Can the infant itself, in receiving this rite, please God? 
J.. No ; for it is destitute of faith. 

Q, 88. How do you know that infants are destitute of faith? 
A. Because they cannot believe in him of whom they have never 
heard 1 As saith the Apostle, Kom. x. 14, " How shall they be- 
lieve in him of whom they have not heard ?" 

Q. 89. But may there not be two kinds of baptism — one suited 
to believers, and one to infants destitute of faith ? J.. No ; for 
the Scriptures speak only of one baptism. 



430 QUESTIONS ON INPANl!' BAPTISM. 

Q, 90. Why did John baptize at Enon ? A, " Because there 
was much water there." ' 

Q. 91. Would not a few quarts of water baptize hundreds ? 
A, No ; a few quarts might sprinkle hundreds, but could not 
baptize one. 

Q, 92. Who appointed the sprinkling of infants ? A. The 
clergy. 

Q, 93. When did sprinkling become general among Koman 
Pedobaptists ? A, The Pope, in the year 1311, declared 
sprinkling or immersion as indifferent — either would do very 
well. But in England, it did not become general till after the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

Q, 94. Why do you sprinkle water upon the face ? A, Be- 
cause thus the Clergy have ordained. 

Q. 95. Why do they not sprinkle the foreskin, seeing the Jews 
circumcised it ? A* Because it would be indecent and impolite. 

Q. 96. Was not, then, circumcision indecent and impolite? 
A, No; for it was commanded of God. 

Q, 97. Can you give no better reason for sprinkling the face 
than that given ? ^. No ; the clergy have pitched upon it, and 
perhaps they had some reason for it. 

^. 98i To what is baptism compared in the New Testament? 
A. To a burial and resurrection. Bom. vi. 4-6. 

Q. 99. Does sprinkling the face represent a burial ? A. No. 

Q, 100. Does immersing the whole person resemble a burial ? 
A. Yes ; " We are buried with him in baptism/' 

Q. 101. Does a child carrying away from the preacher resem- 
ble a resurrection ? A, No. 

Q, 102. How, then, is the resurrection exhibited ? A, After 
the subject has been immersed in water and completely over- 
whelmed in it, his rising up out of the water is an emblem of a 
resurrection. 

Q. 103. Is baptism compared to any thing else in the Scrip- 
tures ? A, Yes ; to the regenerating influences and operation 
of the Spirit of God. Hence we read of "the washing of rege- 
neration'^ and of the " baptism of the Holy Spirit.'' 

Q. 104. Is sprinkling an emblem of the operation of the Spirit ? 
A. No. 

Q, 105. What is there in immersion in water that is an em- 
blem of the regenerating operation of the Spirit ? A, The ap- 
plication of water to the whole person of the subject, and the 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 43"! 

consequent "putting off of the filth of the flesh/' is an emblem 
of the operation of the Spirit upon the whole soul of man, affect- 
ing the understanding, will, and affections, and the consequent 
** putting off of the sins of the flesh,'' or "the old man with his 
deeds." This, immersion beautifully exhibits ; but sprinkling 
cannot. 

Q, 106. How shall an illiterate man know the meaning of the 
Oreek word baptism ? A, By inquiring how the Greek church 
practise this rite. It is certain they ought to understand theijr 
own language best. 

Q. 107. And how does the Greek church administer this or- 
dinance ? A, Even to this day they immerse every subject, in 
all climes, and in all cases in which they may be placed. 

Q, 108. Has not immersion in cold water been a dangerous 
practice ? ^. No ; in the frozen regions of Russia and Canada, 
in the midst of the coldest winters, and in the warmest climates 
of the torid zone, it has been practised without danger, and with 
manifest safety to the administrators and subjects, 

Q. 109. Why was sprinkling substituted for Immersion? 
A* To gratify the caprice, the pride, and the carnality of the 
human mind. 

Q, 110. Why were infants baptized or sprinkled, seeing there 
is no such command or precedent in the Bible ? A, Why did the 
Israelites make a golden calf — Uzzah touch the sacred ark — and 
Nadab and Abihu offer strange and uncommanded fire upon 
the altar of the Lord ? From the same principle, and for the 
same reason, was this practice first introduced. 

Q. 111. Did you ever read of infant church membership? 
A, Yes, in books of baptism, but never in the Bible. 

Q. 112. What do you understand by " infant church mem- 
bership ?" A, I understand the phrase to mean, that infants 
are members of the visible church. 

Q, 113. Are there any directions given in the Scriptures for 
the proper discipline and management of infant members? 
A, None ; the Bible knows of no such members ; it addresses 
all members as equally qualified by faith and grace to attend to 
all the ordinary duties of Christianity. 

Q. 114. Do we ever read of any members of the church who 
are qualified for one or two of the ordinances of the church, and 
disqualified for attendance on the other institutions of it? 
A, None. 



432 QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

Q. 115. Can infants, then, be considered as members of the 
visible church, seeing they are not qualified for the observance 
of the ordinances of it ? A. By no means. 

Q, 116. Is Jesus Christ represented as King of his kingdom 
or church? A, Yes. Rev. xix. 16. 

Q. 117. "Wherein does the honour and glory of a king con- 
sist ? A, In reigning over a vrilling people ; a people who love 
and esteem him, and serve him as volunteers, and in governing 
them in wisdom and justice. 

Q. 118. Where is Christ spoken of as a King ? A. Psalm ex. 
1, 2, 3 ; John xviii. 37. 

Q. 119. What is the character of his subjects? A, They are 
said to be ** a willing people'' — " of the truth'' — " taught of 
God" — "born from above" — and "true and faithful." 

Q. 120. Are infants of such a character ? -4. No ; conse- 
quently cannot be subjects of his visible kingdom. 

Q, 121. In what point of view are we to consider infants ? A. 
As inheriting an evil nature — "conceived in sin" — ** brought 
forth in iniquity'^ — "prone to evil" — guilty, and subject to 
death, " the wages of sin." See Psalm Iviii. 3, li. 5 ; Job xiv. 4; 
John iii. 6 ; Eph. ii. 3. 

Q, 122. Can any or all of them be saved who die before they 
are capable subjects of instruction ? A, Yes ; by the merits and 
atonement of Christ. 

Q. 123. As our greatest concern is with them that live, how 
should we manage them during childhood with regard to their 
spiritual concerns ? A, We should " bring them up in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord" — that is, we should make 
them well acquainted with the Scriptures of truth ; make them 
commit to memory the most plain and striking parts of it, re- 
specting their present state and condition, the character of God, 
and of his son Jesus Christ our Lord, and the doctrine of Christ. 
Above all, we should exhibit a good example before them for 
their illumination, renovation, and salvation, without endeavour- 
ing to force a profession of religion upon them, or the views of 
any particular party or sect. 

Q. 124. Should we ever urge them to profess Christianity? 
A, No. We should teach them what it is to be a Christian, and 
the awful consequences of rejecting the gospel and dying in in- 
fidelity; but leave it to their own conscience when and how to 
profess Christianity. 



■QXimi^tONS ON INFANT BAPTTSi\!r. 4fe 

Q. 125. Would the sprinkling of them in infancy tend to ac- 
celerate their conversion, — would it secure that they ever would 
be Christians, or confer upon them any Christian benefit? 
A, Not in the least. 

Q, 126. Have not many Christians had their infants sprinkled 
or baptized in infancy ? A, 1 make no doubt but there were, 
and there are Christians in this practice. 

Q. 127. But would you make this a reason why we, who are 
convinced that the thing is a mere tradition of men, should 
practise it ? A, No ; for then might we pray to the Virgin 
Mary, believe in purgatory, make the sign of the cross in bap- 
tizing, swear to "the solemn league,^^ believe the doctrine of 
consubstantiation, or transubstantiation, go into a monastery, or 
take the vow of celibacy ; because some good men have done 
some of these things. 

Q, 128. Is not the same action alike good or bad to all who 
practise it ? J.. No ; for there is a great difference between a 
person performing an action, thinking it right, and one perform- 
ing the same action, doubting of its propriety or knowing it to be 
wrong. The former is a simple mistake; the latter, a wilful 
transgression. Even civil law discriminates between the dif- 
ferent degrees of demerit in the action, arising from the know- 
ledge and determination of the agent. Hence, we have different 
kinds of murder, and different punishments annexed to each, 
according to circumstances. 

Q. 129. Are there not two kinds of sins of ignorance? A, Yes ; 
there is an unavoidable ignorance and a wilful ignorance. The 
former exists where the subject has no possible means of in- 
formation — such as the Indian's ignorance of the Saviour : the 
latter exists where the subject might know, if he would avail 
himself of the means of knowledge which he possesses — such as 
the Pedobaptist's ignorance of the true subject and action of 
baptism. Whatever excuse can be plead for the former, there 
is no extenuation of the latter. 

Q, 130. If infant baptism be an evil thing, as it is often re- 
presented, it appears strange that the Almighty should have 
tolerated its continuance so long, and suffered it to extend so 
far with impunity. How do you account for this ? A, The 
Almighty has suffered many errors to exist for a much longer 
time. The whole system of Antichrist is now more than 1200 

37 



434 <iUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM.' 

years old, and paganism is several thousand years old. The 
future state only will exhibit the reasons of this. 

Q, 131. How do you view all Pedobaptists with regard to thia 
ordinance of baptism ? Can you, according to the Scriptures, 
consider them baptized persons, or do you consider them as un- 
baptized ? A, There is but one baptism ; and all who have not 
been immersed into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit, after having professed the faith of the gospel, have never 
been baptized, and are now in an unhaptized state, 

Q. 132. What is the design of baptism ? A, Besides our put- 
ting on of Christ, and having the name of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Spirit put upon us, we are baptized for 
the remission of all past sins, through faith in his blood. Thus 
Peter, Acts ii. 38, commanded three thousand Jews "to be bap- 
tized, every one for himself, for the remission of sins \^' thus,* 
Ananias told Paul to "be baptized and wash away his sins.'' 
Hence, baptism "is the washing of regeneration*/' thus the 
church is cleansed tJirougfi the hath of water by the word, and 
thus, "the like figure'' to Noah's being saved by water in the 
ark, "baptism does also now save us, not the putting away of 
the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to- 
wards God, through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ." 

Q, 133. Why are many good people so much divided in their 
views of Scripture, seeing they have but one Bible, and all read 
it in the same language? A. Because they belong to difi*erent 
sects and have different systems, and they rather make the 
Bible bow to their own systems, than make their systems bow 
to the Bible ; or, in other words, each man, too generally, views 
the Bible through the medium of his system ; and, of course, 
it will appear to him to favour it. Just as if A, B, and G 
should each put on different coloured glasses : A puts on green 
spectacles ; B, yellow ; and C, blue. Each of them, through 
his own glasses, looks at the Bible. To A, it appears green ; 
to B, yellow ; and to C, blue. They begin to debate on its 
colour. It is impossible for any one of them to convince an- 
other that he is wrong ; each one feels a conviction, next to ab- 
solute certainty, that his opinion is right. But D, who has no 
spectacles on, and who is standing by during the contest, very 
well knows that they are all wrong. He sees the spectacles on 
each man's nose, and easily accounts for the difference. Thus, 
one professor reads the Bible with John Calvin on his nose ; an^ 



QUESTIONS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 435 

other, with John Wesley; a third, with John Gill ; and a fourth, 
with some one else. Thrice happy the man who lifts the Bible 
as if it had dropped from heaven into his hand alone ; and who, 
with a single eye, reads for himself! 

Q, 134. Who is most likely to understand it ? A, He who 
practises what he already knows. 



APPENDIX. 



Since writing the preceding queries and answers, I have read 
with approbation a passage in " Coleridge's Aids to Reflection'' 
on the Baptismal Rite, which I deem worthy to add, by way? 
of confirmation of the views given in this treatise on the scrips 
tural subjects of Christian baptism. To the learned reader I 
need not say, that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was not merely a 
poet and a philosopher of the highest order, but, by concession, 
the most talented theologian in the English church, of his day. 
Some of the London reviews have pronounced him "the greatest, 
theologian in the world, of the first quarter of the present cen- 
tury/' That he was a man of the most philosophic and discri- 
minating mind, as well as of prodigious theological attainments, 
no one who has read his various works, and especially hiSv 
" Aids to Reflection," can reasonably doubt. 

As a member of the Episcopal church, his opinion and his 
testimony will weigh more with the multitude than any thing 
that a Baptist could say on our premises or reasonings. While 
admitting that infant baptism, as a discretionary and pruden- 
tial custom of the church, may subserve some good purpose to 
both parents and children, as other human expedients, he 
boldly takes the ground that there is no authority for it in the 
Sacred Scriptures. 

His words are: — "I am. of the opinion that the divines in 
your side" (that is, the Episcopal church) "are chargeable with 
a far more grievous mistake — that of giving a carnal and Juda- 
izing interpretation to the various gospel texts in which the 
terms baptism and baptize occur, contrary to the express and 
earnest admonitions of the Apostle Paul." "The texts appealed 
to, as commanding or authorizing infant baptism, are all, with- 
out exception, made to bear a sense neither designed nor dedu- 
cible ; and likewise, (historically considered,) there exists no 
Bufi&cient positive evidence that the baptism of infants was in 

37* 437 



438 APPENDIX. 

stituted by the Apostles, in the practice of the apostolic age." 
Page 322, Burlington edition, 1840. 

Of the two main foundations on which ** sectarians'' found the 
practice of infant baptism, ''household baptisms" and o^ circum- 
cision, he says : — " If I should inform any one that I had called 
at a friend's house, but had found nobody at home — the family 
having all gone to the play ; and if he, on the strength of this in- 
formation, should take occasion to asperse my friend's wife for 
unmotherly conduct in taking an infant, six months old, to a 
crowded theatre, would you allow him to press on the word ' no- 
body,' and *all the family,' in justification of the slander? 
Would you not tell him that the words were to be interpreted ac- 
cording to the nature of the subject, the purpose of the speaker, 
and their ordinary acceptation ; and that he must, or might have 
known that infants of that age would not be admitted into the 
theatre ? Exactly so with regard to the words, * he and all his 
household.^ Had baptism of infants, at that early period of the 
gospel, been a known practice, or had this been previously demon- 
strated, then, indeed, the argument that, in all probability, there 
were infants or young children in so large a family, would be no 
more objectionable than as being superfluous, and a sort of anti- 
climax in logic. But, if the words are cited as the proof, it 
would be a clear petitio principii, (a begging of the question,) 
though there had been nothing else against it. But when we 
turn back to the Scriptures preceding the narrative, and find 
repentance and belief demanded as the terms and indispensable 
conditions of baptism, then the case above imagined applies in 
its full force. 

"Equally vain is the pretended analogy from circumcision, 
which was no sacrament at all, but the means and mark of a 
national distinction." "Nor was it ever pretended that any 
grace was conferred by it, or that the rite was significant of any 
inward or spiritual operation." P. 320. 

So unanswerably this greatest of men and theologians carries 
away the long-cherished foundations of infant baptism. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



Abraham's two wives — Symbols of two 

Covenants, 436. 
Action of Baptism, 116. 
Ante-Nicene, or Apostolic Fathers, 343. 
Appendix, 436. 
"Arise and be hapUzed,^^ 400. 
Arg. l.—Bapto, 116. 
2.—Baptizo, 122. 
3. — Ancient Versions, 134. 
4.— English Translators, 139. 
. 5. — Reformers, Annotators, Para- 
phrasts, and Critics, 144. 
6. — ^English Lexicographers, Ency- 
clopedias, and Reviewers of 
the Pedobaptist school, 149. 
7. — Words in construction with 
Baptizo, Raino, Rantizo, Clieo, 
and JLouo, such as epi, en, eis, 
ek, and apo, 153. 
8. — ^Places where baptism was an- 
ciently performed, 157. 
9. — Apostolic allusions to baptism, 

161. 
10. — Passages urged against immer- 
sion from the use of Baptizo 
and Baptismos, 166. 
11. — ^Legal sprinklings, 171. 
12.— Convertible terms, 178. 
History of immersion, 181. 

B. 

Bible, chapters and verses, 59. 

climax of its moral evidences, 37. 

denial of, reduced to an absurdity, 32. 

history of one family, 30. 

plan of, 24. 

proper reading of, 61. 

writers of, 29. 
Blessing babes, 385. 



Chalmers and Calvin vs. Dr. Miller, 165. 
Character of the Man of Sin, 47. 
Cheever, Dr., views of Church and State 

as the cause of religious persecution 

imperfect, 413. 
Children legally clean and unclean, 337. 

holy, examined, 384. 
Christian, not of, but in, the sects, 16. 
Christianity proposes no hereditary- 
rights, 109. 
Christianity favourable to liberty, 111. 
Christian Church and Jewish nation not 

identical, 329. 
Christian confession, foundation of the 

church, 18. 
Christian union, basis of, 21. 
Church, cradle of civil liberty, 110. 
Church and nation, identical according 

to Dr. Miller, 328. 
Climax of moral evidence, 37. 
Coleridge's views of infant baptism, 437. 
Communities founded on faith were 

never formed before the Christian. 

Church, 334. 
Conversion, five essentials to, 115. 
Council, African, decreed infant bap- 
tism, 356. 
Covenants of promise, 89. 
Covenant of circumcision, 89. 

with Noah, 93. 

with Abraham, 93. 

of the throne, 95. 

of the priesthood, 95. 

signs and seals of, 97. 

summary of, 96. 

D. 

Dedication of infants and things a Jew- 
ish and Roman custom, 332. 

Design of baptism, 247. 

Disquisition on the phrase. Remission of 
sins, as connected with baptism, 262. 

Divisions and sects, the philosophy of, 434. 



Carnal ordinances, 104. 

Catechism for Pedobaptists, 432. 

Catechumens a proof that infant baptism 
was not of apostolic origin, 373. 

Catholic Church neither Greek nor Ro- 
man, 113. 



E. 

Ecclesiastical covenants, alleged by Dr. 
Miller, are contrary to the letter and 
spirit of Christianity and its gospel, 
323. 

439 



440 



INDEX OP SUBJECTS. 



Errors of theory and practice, the most 
gross aberrations from Christian doc- 
trine, are traced to the first century by 
Isaac Taylor, in his Ancient but not 
Original Christianity, 348. 

Eternal life neither founded on nor pro- 
mised in the Jewish institution, 107. 

Evangelical reformation, two cardinal 
points of, 20. 

Evidences of the Bible, intrinsic and ex- 
trinsic, 27. 

Evils of infant baptism : 

1. Will-worship, 405. 

2. Carnalizes and secularizes the 

church, 406. 

3. Infringes upon liberty of conscience 

and freedom of action, 408. 

4. Fosters a persecuting spirit, 410. 

F. 

Faith, 63. 
the noblest faculty of man, 66. 
the principle of all moral culture, 67. 
different kinds of, 69. 
and its object distinguished, 71. 

Fundamental proposition of Christian- 
ity, 74. 

Flesh and spirit, liberty and necessity, 
102. 

a. 

Good olive-tree, parable of, 332. 

H. 

Hannah's dedication of her son con- 
trasted with infant dedication in bap- 
tism, 113. 
History of Sprinkling, 191. 
Historians quoted : 
Waddington, 187. 
Giesler, Cave, 187. 
Neander, 186. 
Mosheim, 186. 
Wall, 192. 
Sotus, 194. 
Mede, 194. 

Sir N. KnatchbuU, 194. 
introduced by the Puritans, 196. 
Council of Ravenna, 200. 
compulsion into Virginia, 197. 
the first law enacting it, 190. 
not generally introduced, 200. 
Household baptism not including in- 
fants : 
Dr. Whitby, Doddridge, Limborch, 

Lawson, Henry, Calvin, 231. 
Burkit, D'Oyly, and Mant required the 
proof of a negative, 232. 
Hovisehold baptisms examined, 231. 



Infant baptism first named by Tertul- 
lian, 355. 
gradually introduced, 373. 
to take away original sin, 375. 
insupportable by Scripture, conceded 

by Bishop Kenrick, 339. 
contrary to the clearest statements 
and reasonings, 390. 
Infant communion and infant baptism 
equally common in the ancient church, 
352. 
Infant dedication a papistical notion, 113. 

unknown in the Bible, 112. 
Interpretation of Scripture, 61. 

seven rules of, 61. 
Introduction, 13. 

J. 

Jewish institution carnal, 105. 

not a proselyting institution, 109. 

not identical with the Christian insti- 
tution, shown, 239. 

further developed, 246. 
Jewish nation and a church contrasted, 

239. 
Jewish circumcision and Christian bap- 
tism differ in sixteen points, 242. 
John's baptism not a Jewish rite, 216. 

never repeated to the posterity of the 
baptized, 217. 

it required a moral qualification, 218. 

K. 

Kenrick, Bishop, candour of, 317. 
his logical argiunents, 316. 
surrenders the commission as not au- 
thorizing infant baptism, 319. 



Lexicographers, twelve quoted on bap- 

tizo, 123. 
Liberty and necessity, 102. 
Life and immortality no part of the 

Jew's religion, 106. 

M. 

Miller, Doctor and Professor, offers ten 
arguments — they are considered, 321. 

Monastic life, celibacy, and infant bap- 
tism equally depend on tradition, 341. 

N. 

Nation and church distinguished, 239. 
New institution, 102. 
Novatian's baptism, 191. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



441 



Numbers immersed and sprinkled in all 
past time, 201. 

0. 

Offices of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 

stated, 290. 
Oikos and oikia considered, 419. 
On the question of household baptism, 

419. 

P. 

Parents or children responsible, 391. 

Parmly, Dr., letter to Prof. Anthon, 180. 

Pedobaptist persecutions in New Eng- 
land and Virginia, 410. 
in Geneva, 414. 

Personal responsibility and infant bap- 
tism irreconcilable, 391, 

Pouring inhibited, 191. 

Preface, 5. 

Promise, Acts 11. 3, not infant baptism, 
383. 

Prophecies numerous and various, their 
use, 41. 

Proposition, soul-redeeming, 74. 

Q. 

Questions propounded and answered on 
all the attitudes and positions of in- 



fant baptism, to the number of one 
hundred and thirty-four, 422. 

E. 

Reviews : 

1. Bishop Kenriok, 313. 

2. Dr. Miller of Princeton, 326. 

3. Dr. Miller and Dr. Wall, 339. 

4. Dr. Miller, Dr. Wall, and others, 

352. 
6. Continued, 305. 

6. Dr. Kurtz of Baltimore, 378, 

7. Rev. Edwin Hall, 378. 

8. Professor Stuart of Andover, 392. 

9. Dr. C. Taylor, editor of Calmet's 

Dictionary, 417. 



Sprinkling on the face, 430. 

why substituted for immersion, 431. 

w. 

Why are many good people so much di- 
vided in their views of Scripture, see- 
ing they have but one Bible, and read 
it in the same language ? 434. 



INDEX OP AUTHORS 

QUOTED IN THIS TREATISE IN PROOF OP THE MEANING OF BAPTISMO. 



Alstedius, 146. 
Ambrose, 182. 
Anthon, Professor, 180. 
Aratus, 129. 
Aristotle, 128. 
Aristophanes, 130. 
Augusti, 146. 
Assembly of Divines, 163. 

Barnabas, 181. 

Barnes, 162. 

Basil, 182. 

Bass, 125. 

Benson, 134. 

Beza, 140. 

Blackstone, Sir William, 133. 

Bloomfield, 146. 

Bossuet, 146. 

Bowen, 183. 

Brand's Cyclopedia, 70. 

Brenner, 184. 

Bretschneider, 125. 

Butman, 146. 

Buddeus, 146. 

Buxtorf, 135. 

Calvin, 145. 

Campbell, Dr. George, 142. 

Carson, Dr. Alexander, 127. 

Casaubon, 145, 169. 

Castel, 135. 

Chambers's Encyclopedia, 70. 

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 163. 

Clark, S., 162. 

Camming, Dr., 133. 

Cyril, 169. 

Diodorus Siculus, 130. 
Doddi-idge, Dr., 163. 



Dodwell, 169. 
Donnegan, 124. 

Edwards, Jonathan, Dr., 133. 
Edinburgh Encyclopedia, 147. 
Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica, 182. 
Encyclopedia Britannica, 180. 
Edinburgh Review, 184. 
Epictetus, 130. 
Ernesti, 134. 
Ewing, Greville, Dr., 146. 

Gale, Dr., 127. 
Gotch, 136. 
Greenfield, 124. 
Grotius, 145, 169. 
Gurtlerus, 146. 
Gregory Nazianzen, 182. 

Heliodorus, 130. 
Henderson, Dr., 135. . 
Heraclides Ponticus, 129, 
Hermes, 181. 
Herodotus, 129. 
Hippocrates, 130. 
Homer, 128. 
Hopkins, Bishop, 169. 
Horn, 134. 
Hospinianus, 145. 

Ikenius, 169. 
Johnson, Dr., 146. 
Jones, 124. 
t*(/sephus, 128. 
Justin Martyr, 130. 
Judith, chap. xii. 5. 131. 



Le Clerc, 169. 
Leigh, 146, 169, 



443 



444 



INDEX OP AUTHORS. 



Locke, 162. 
Lucian, 127. 
Luther, 144. 

McKnight, Dr., 140. 
Michaelis, 135. 
Mosheim, 186. 

Nazianzen, 182. 
Neander, 186. 
Kicholson, Bishop, 163. 

Owen, Dr., 133. 

Parkhurst, 124. 

Pasor, 123. 

Patavius, 145. 

Penn, 139. 

Pickering, 125, 

Pindar, 128. 

Pirie, 134. 

Plato, De Rep., 129, 130. 

Plutarch, 127. 

Pollock, 166. 

Polybius, 127. 

Reeves, 183. 

Reynolds, Bishop, 168. 

Review, English Monthly, vol. 70, 

Richardson's Dictionary, 146, 

Robertson, 123. 

RosenmuUer's Dictionary, 123. 

Rost, Professor, 125. 

Salmasius, 145. 
Bcapula, 123. 



Schleusner's Dictionary, 123, 

Scholz, 146. 

Seeker, 162. 

Sirach, 131. 

Sherlock, Bishop, 123. 

Stackhouse, 183. 

Stephanas's Dictionary, 123. 

Stokius, 125. 

Strabo, 127. 

Stuart, Professor, 126. 

Taylor, Bishop, 133, 138. 
Taylor's Calmet, 70. 
Tertullian, 182. 
Themistius, 128. 
Tholuck, 202. 
Thompson, 139. 
Tillotson, 162, 169. 
Tyndale, 136. 

Usher, 188. 

Venema, 146. 
Vitringa, 133. 
Vossius, 146, 183. 

Wall, Dr., 162, 190, 403, 404. 
Waterland, l33. 
Wells, 162. 
Wesley, John, 139. 
Wickliflfe, 136. 
Witsius, 182. 

Xenophon, 129. 

Zanchius, 145. 



THE END. 



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